A 
A 

0 
0 
0 
8 
2 
1 
6 
5 
2 


Sii-&-M%<;;>i-:<<:4 


'.>yo»>'//-&>:<''ff/f://Zfy' 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Progress 
From  Experience 


By 
Edward  Selden  Hyde 


Cochrane  Publishing  Companj 

Tribune  Building 

New  York 

1910 


Copyright,  1910,  by 
Edward  Selden  Hyde. 


4,4 


Progress  From  Experience 


1521847 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  Page 

I.  Progress  in  Progression          .         -         -  -  9 

II.  Industrial  Progress    -----  16 

III.  The  Survival  of  the  Fittest            -         -  -  22 

IV.  Present  Industrial  Tendencies  -         -         -  25 

V.  Trusts  and  the  Tariff            -         -         -  -  35 

VI.  Industry  and  the  State      ...         -  42 

VII.  The  Socialization  of  Industry        -         -  -  48 

VIII.  The  Root  of  all  Evil         -         -         .         -  56 

IX.  Socialism  in   relation  to  Christianity  and  De- 

mocracy          -..---  61 

X.  Current  Social  Tendencies    -         -         -  -  68 

XI.  Religion  and   Progress         .         -         -         -  74 

XII.  The  Puritan  Succession         -         -         -  -  79 


Progress  From  Experience 


CHAPTER  I. 

PROGRESS  IN  PROGRESSION. 

The  most  constant,  evident  and  general  fact  of  civi- 
lization is  progress,  the  forward  movement.  Recogniz- 
ing this  we  as  promptly  become  aware  of  a  backward 
facing,  wistful  or  well  considered.  The  romancer  finds 
rich  material  in  the  palmy  days  before  the  war,  in  the 
homespun  age  of  New  England  and  in  the  brave  days 
of  old  when  knighthood  was  in  flower;  while  the  seri- 
ous student  discovers  that  all  revolutions  have  been  too 
revolutionary,  that  part  of  that  which  was  thought  to 
be  destroyed  returns  unbidden,  or  that  men  set  about 
with  earnest  purpose  to  restore  something  of  that  which 
was  overthrown.  The  change  and  advance  which  no 
man's  hand  may  stay  may  be  the  bringing  in  of  a  bet- 
ter order  of  things  in  the  general  estimation  or  in 
reality,  yet  a  very  human  clinging  to  the  past  is  so 
large  a  characteristic  of  most  of  us  that  few  words  of 
our  daily  vocabulary  bear  to  the  understanding  such 
an  equivocal  meaning  as  progress.  No  need  to  divide 
the  human  family  into  the  two  camps  distinguished  as 
conservative  and  progressive  when  even  those  who 
know  their  own  minds  find  reason  and  justification  for 
both  sentiments  and  both  attitudes.  Really,  the  abso- 
lute conservatives  and  the  out-and-out  progressives  are 

9 


10    PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

not  to  be  taken  seriously.  The  temperamental  outlook 
on  life  is  inconclusive.  We  are  cheered  by  the  optimis- 
tic without  being  convinced  while  we  receive  the  warn- 
ings of  the  pessimistic  without  illumination.  There  are 
the  best  of  reasons  why  both  conservatism  and  pro- 
gressiveness  should  be  universal  qualities  of  the  human 
mind.  Without  conservatism  progress  could  have 
neither  point  of  departure  nor  permanency;  would  be 
mere  change  having  but  momentary  significance ;  wouM 
as  often  be  retrogression.  Without  progress  conserva- 
tism would  weigh  doM^n  aspiration  and  circumscribe 
every  human  purpose  and  endeavor. 

Forces  which  make  for  progress?  without  which  pro- 
gress would  be  impossible?  Assuredly;  but  in  social 
dynamics  as  in  the  division  of  mechanics  the  applica- 
tion of  power  is  as  large  a  question  as  that  of  the  power 
itself.  If  progress  were  an  involuntary  process  or  ten- 
dency of  human  society  then  simple  awe  or  complacent 
acquiescense,  either  implying  a  state  of  irresponsibility 
on  our  part,  would  be  justifiable.  But  if  instead  of  .-i 
process  progress  be  a  result  of  influences  and  tendencies 
in  which  each  and  all  are  intimately  concerned,  and  in 
which  individual  aims  and  purposes  become  the  com- 
mon motive  of  considerable  groups  counting  as  factors 
among  others,  then  the  average  person's  equipment  of 
two  or  three  general  facts,  half  a  dozen  specific  facts 
and  a  temperament,  is  inadequate  for  arriving  at  the 
full  understanding  which  the  matter  demands.  For 
we  must  do  ourselves  both  the  honor  and  the  justice  to 
suppose  that  that  which  sums  up  the  final  results  of  liv- 
ing is  not  to  be  compassed  without  the  smallest  chal- 
lenge of  our  exercised  faculties  and  with  no  quickening 
of  the  keenest  of  our  endowments. 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  11 

Is  there  really  any  such  thing  as  progress?  And 
does  that  of  the  present  time  merely  consist  in  follow- 
ing the  downward  slope?  There  are  those  who  con- 
sider that  the  world  was  not  intended  to  be  very  good, 
and  that  it  is  quite  useless  trying  to  make  it  better; 
but  that  a  man  has  the  chance  of  making  his  account 
with  the  world  as  it  is  on  terms  fairly  satisfactory  to 
himself;  and  so  we  are  never  without  the  company  of 
the  cheerful   pessimist.     We  might  have  worse. 

Those  results  of  ages  of  living  which  gave  men's 
minds  the  idea  of  progress  are  most  naturally  related 
to  the  experiences  of  past  and  present  generations  out 
of  which  they  grew.  As  each  new  generation  comes  to 
consciousness  it  discovers  that  with  its  recognized 
force  of  will  its  only  escape  from  abject  and  paralyz- 
ing ignorance  is  to  avail  of  the  store  of  past  experience 
condensed  in  textbooks,  teachings  and  example ;  at  the 
same  time  it  finds  that  all  that  this  piled  up  experience 
has  done  or  can  do  is  to  enable  those  in  the  stress  and 
endurance  of  life  to  make  the  best  of  the  limitations 
and  hindrances  with  which  they  are  beset.  Then  find- 
ing that  the  good  within  reach  is  neutralized  by  the  bad 
which  has  never  been  gotten  rid  of,  and  that  the  best 
which  is  just  out  of  reach  is  kept  out  of  reach  by  its 
own  limitations,  each  generation  is  spurred  by  these 
dissatisfactions  to  sort  over  the  old  experiences  and 
match  them  up  with  its  own  in  the  endeavor  to  increase 
the  efficiency  of  its  working  theory. 

It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that  where  dissatisfac- 
tion is  felt  it  should  be  keener  in  the  case  of  experi- 
ences still  fresh  in  memory  than  in  the  case  of  older 
and  half-forgotten  ones ;  and  out  of  this  arises  an  alter- 
nating in  experimental  tendencies  which  gives  the  pes- 


12     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

simist  his  opportunity  to  say  that  it  is  all  an  endless 
and  meaningless  swinging  of  the  pendulum  wherein 
action  and  reaction  are  equal.  Where  there  is  shifting 
and  displacement  it  is  inevitable  that  some  admirable 
things  should  suffer  or  lose  their  relative  value,  even 
while  real  progress  is  the  outcome.  That  there  is  noth- 
ing new  under  the  sun,  however,  is  the  expression  of  a 
sentiment  rather  than  of  a  fact. 

Each  generation  faces  a  dawn  of  rising  possibilities, 
glimmering  theories  and  cheerful  expectations,  overshot 
by  bars  of  hope  and  imagination  reaching  towards  the 
heights  of  heaven.  In  so  far  as  these  theories,  propo- 
sitions and  imaginings  come  into  practice  and  are 
made  trial  of,  they  become  experience,  and  through 
this  medium  may  contribute  to  progress.  Of  course  it 
is  the  fond  fancy  of  those  devoted  to  new  ideas  that 
such  thought  out  propositions  constitute  progress  with- 
out much  regard  to  the  experience  bom  of  them,  but 
the  natural  order  is  otherwise.  If  original  ideas,  ex- 
perience and  progress  not  only  follow  each  other  in 
order,  but  in  uniform  and  corresponding  ratio,  then 
let  theories  come  thick  and  fast  and  let  the  experience 
mill  be  pushed  day  and  night  to  the  accompaniment  of 
buzz-saw,  trolley  and  pneumatic  riveter;  but  uniform- 
ity ends  with  the  order  of  succession  and  that's  what 
makes  the  game  interesting.  Knowledge  comes,  but 
wisdom  lingers,  and  we  linger  on  the  shore  of  reflection 
in  the  stillness  of  whose  air  the  recurrent  fall  of  the 
waves  of  the  flowing  tides  conduces  to  mental  assimila- 
tion rather  than  to  forcing  processes  of  what  kind  so- 
ever. 

Meantime  conservatism  which  is  stationary  is  merely 
pessimism  in  another  form.     It  amounts  to  the  asser- 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     13 

tion  that  experience  can  teach  us  nothing,  and  there- 
fore might  just  as  well  not  be.  "We  must  do  as  our 
fathers  did  because  that's  the  way.  If  we  fall  to  ex- 
amining their  experience  we  shall  discover  wherein 
they  came  short  and  wherein  possibly  we  might  do 
better. 

Some  people  never  learn  by  experience.  Some  peo- 
ples do  not  learn  by  experience,  and  so  we  have  the  un- 
progressive  races,  whose  experience  is  for  the  profit  of 
others  than  themselves. 

"The  tendency  of  the  age"  has  ever  been  on  men's 
lips.  In  proportion  as  we  realize  that  the  tendencies  of 
the  past  have  given  place  to  those  of  our  o^\'n  time 
must  we  be  persuaded  that  present  tendencies  are  not 
destined  to  last;  that  in  fact  their  present  authority 
may  be  the  essential  mark  of  their  transitory  character. 
A  man  not  in  sympathy  with  his  age  subjects  himself 
to  deprivation  and  limits  the  influence  which  he  might 
exert;  at  the  same  time  in  proportion  as  we  are  domi- 
nated by  the  currents  of  our  own  time  do  we  cease  to  be 
heirs  of  the  ages  except  in  dumb,  unconscious  fashion. 

The  most  brilliant  achievement  in  discovery  resulted 
from  acting  on  a  theory;  and  yet  if  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus had  been  correct  in  his  theory  he  would  have 
perished  with  his  crew  long  before  reaching  the  desti- 
nation aimed  for,  and  instead  of  an  immortality  of 
fame  rewarding  his  heroic  boldness  one  more  pathetic 
tradition  would  have  been  added  to  the  slumbering  an- 
nals of  men's  tragic  failures.  The  men  of  the  expedi- 
tion were  fully  justified  in  their  mutinous  disposition. 
They  had  gone  sailing  with  a  navigator  who  did  not 
know  how  far  it  was  to  Cochin  China  nor  whether  his 
provisions  would  hold  out.    No  base  of  supplies  on  the 


14  PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

way  could  be  counted  on,  and  apparently  none  was 
counted  on.  The  little  scientific  learning  of  the  day 
was  a  dangerous  thing.  The  driftage  brought  in  by 
prolonged  westerly  gales  was  a  safer  dependence  than 
the  theory  that  the  world  was  round.  If  Columbus  had 
headed  westward  on  the  theory  that  the  world  was  flat 
and  in  the  confidence  that  tree-trunks  cast  up  by  the 
sea  had  not  grown  in  the  mountains  of  the  moon,  and 
that  Avhere  they  had  drifted  his  ships  could  sail,  he 
would  have  made  the  same  discoveries  and  would  have 
as  fully  earned  the  conspicuous  honor  which  now  at- 
taches to  his  name. 

To  do  the  business,  however,  a  motive  was  needed 
more  than  a  theory,  and  in  far  Cathay  were  known  to 
be  riches  and  plunder,  whereas  a  new  world  might  offer 
mines  of  Peruvian  silver  or  a  Labrador  with  no  cod- 
fishing. 

From  a  has  la  feodalite  to  the  supplanting  of  the 
theory  that  nature  abhors  a  vacuum  there  have  been 
so  many  reversals  of  earlier  beliefs  and  principles  of 
action  that  it  is  not  very  surprising  if  people  fall  in 
with  the  easy  notion  that  the  main  need  of  the  hour  is 
to  remove  the  rubbish  of  the  past  in  order  that  the  car 
of  progress  with  its  impossible  mainspring  of  perpetual 
motion  may  move  along  at  an  easy  gait:  all  that  which 
the  past  holds  out  with  its  failing  arms  with  the  morn- 
ing's experience  does  not  at  once  confirm,  or  towards 
which  the  crudeness  of  ytnith  is  unsubmissive,  being 
accounted  rubbish. 

Now  there  is  something  of  a  true  instinct  in  the  dis- 
position of  youth  to  look  in  the  face  the  forms  of  disci- 
pline with  which  compliance  is  exacted.  The  discipline 
which  was  best  for  the  grandfathers  and  better  for  the 


PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE  15 

fathers  than  anything  perfected  since,  may  become  an 
alien  thing  for  the  grandchildren  in  their  season  of 
opening  to  the  sunlight.  Discipline  of  choice  or  neces- 
sity, accepted  or  imposed,  without  which  no  man  ever 
amounted  to  anything,  there  still  must  be,  and  on  no 
diminishing  scale;  and  to  modify  and  yet  preserve,  to 
replace  while  eliminating,  is  Dame  Nature's  ever  press- 
ing disciplinary  problem  with  her  adolescent  children. 
That  which  stands  by  virtue  of  experience  stands, 
were  the  experience  old,  new  or  continuous.  Those 
things  which  stand  partly  by  experience  and  partly  by 
assumptions  from  experience  which  is  one-sided  and 
incomplete  await  the  coming  of  the  larger  experience  to 
be  recast  in  a  more  perfect  mould.  And  so,  as  progress 
consists  not  in  cutting  loose  from  the  past  but  in  sifting 
the  experience  of  the  past,  to  cast  off  as  mere  irksome 
restraint  the  guiding  and  controlling  principles  handed 
down  from  the  past  without  first  making  sure  of  some- 
thing better,  is  the  denial  of  progress. 


CHAPTER  II. 

INDUSTRIAL   PROGRESS. 

It  is  in  truth  sufficiently  obvious  that  the  industrial 
and  material  development  of  which  all  are  witnesses  is 
the  outcome  of  practical  experience.  This  prodigious 
modern  development  occupies  the  centre  of  the  stage 
and  chiefly  exercises  the  imagination  of  the  average 
man,  filling  him  with  pride,  wonderment,  complacency, 
envious  alarm  or  moral  foreboding  according  to  his 
temperament  or  his  opportunities.  In  the  main  the  po- 
litical, social  and  ethical  problems  now  astir  in  the 
world  are  those  evoked  by  its  presence.  General  inter- 
est in  religion  wanes  and  we  have  ceased  wondering  at 
discoveries  in  science.  Flying  is  a  matter  of  experi- 
mental tests  and  not  an  elaboration  of  scientific  prin- 
ciples. 

And  is  all  discovery  and  invention  then  to  be  sum- 
marily merged  with  experience  in  form  of  trust  or  oth- 
erwise? Here,  indeed,  is  a  difference  which  exists,  a  dis- 
tinction which  must  be  made.  Mechanical  improve- 
ments are  naturally  proportionate  to  thoroughness  in 
technical  training  and  engineering  knowledge,  which, 
coupled  with  inventive  skill,  often  produces  what  is 
patentable  as  well  as  serviceable.  But  beyond  all  this 
there  is  a  faculty  for  invention,  whether  differing  in 
kind  or  in  degree,  which  is  accounted  genius,  at  whose 
productions  men  marvel  as  at  a  pure  creation  which 
seems  to  set  all  previous  experience  at  defiance. 

16 


PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE  17 

But  all  discussion  as  to  the  part  of  experience  in  the 
invention  may  be  at  once  stilled.  The  originality  of 
the  discovery  or  invention  alone  will  not  keep  it  alive. 
It  is  still  through  the  channel  of  experience  that  any 
industrial  progress  will  result. 

The  inventor  originates  his  plan — task  the  first, 
works  out  his  drawings;  task  the  second,  completes  his 
model  at  infinite  pains  if  his  means  hold  out,  or  if  he 
finds  a  partner  with  the  cash  to  pay  for  the  most  ex- 
pensive kind  of  hand-work  in  its  making — task  the 
third.  In  the  inventor's  mind  the  invention  is  worth 
nothing;  on  paper  it  is  worth  little  or  nothing;  its  value 
must  be  demonstrated  in  a  working  model.  If  it  ever 
happens  that  the  first  model  completed  suffices  to  dem- 
onstrate the  utility  of  the  invention  the  fact  remains 
that  the  inventor  must  generally  count  on  making  sev- 
eral models  before  a  demonstration  is  arrived  at  which 
is  satisfactory  even  to  himself.  Let  it  be  inventive 
genius  plus  experience  or  experience  plus  inventive 
genius,  by  inventor  we  must  really  understand  an  ex- 
perimenter seeking  experience  outside  of  current  prac- 
tice by  the  slowest,  costliest  and  most  disheartening  of 
methods. 

Herein  lies  the  tragedy  of  the  inventor's  life,  the 
tragedy  of   the   history  of  invention. 

But  besides  the  case  of  the  unsuccessful  inventor  of 
a  successful  invention  we  hear  it  said  now  and  again 
that  such  and  such  an  inventor,  successful  at  all  points, 
stole  his  ideas  from  so  and  so.  Here  again  we  may  have 
the  unfortunate  inventor  unable  from  lack  of  means  to 
perfect  his  discovery,  which  escapes  from  him  in  conse- 
quence and  is  availed  of  by  another,  or  we  may  be  con- 
fronted with  the  case  of  the  originator  who,  through 


18  PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE 

lack  within  himself  of  practical  experience  or  engineer- 
ing knowledge,  of  powers  of  concentration  and  coor- 
dination, fails  to  reduce  his  ideas  to  the  status  of  an 
invention.  Who  steals  the  inventor's  purse  with  or 
without  assuming  his  debts,  steals  trash ;  and  he  who 
filches  his  idea  takes  that  which  only  remotely  may  en- 
rich him,  and  which  in  the  case  supposed  at  least  leaves 
the  inventor  no  worse  off  than  he  could  possibly  be 
otherwise.  The  thief  knows  what  to  do  with  the  con- 
tents of  a  purse,  but  not  what  to  do  with  the  possibili- 
ties of  an  idea  if  he  be  but  a  thief.  While  the  matter 
of  individual  justice  must  be  dealt  with  on  its  merits 
in  each  particular  case,  the  industrial  world  will  be 
beholden  to  the  man  who  reduces  the  idea  to  experience, 
were  he  originator,  legitimate  assignee  or  the  most 
shameless  and  detestible  of  poachers. 

But  what  of  the  relation  of  industrial  progress  to 
general  progress?  Of  the  progress  of  civilization  in 
its  material  elements  with  its  progress  morally  and  so- 
cially? Between  the  frank  materialist  with  whom  ma- 
terial civilization  is  paramount  to  all  else,  the  muddled 
materialist  for  whom  material  progress  is  a  substitute 
for  moral  and  intellectual  progress,  the  anxious  moral- 
ist who  declares  that  material  expansion  is  swallowing 
up  or  grinding  to  powder  the  ethical  part  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  the  limited  of  apprehension  who  cannot  dis- 
cover that  material  development  involves  any  moral 
quality  or  implication,  it  is  not  easy  to  pose  a  happy 
medium.  That  material  expansion  and  adaptation 
which  is  the  outcome  of  and  which  is  stamped  with  the 
genius  of  a  people  bespeaks  the  moral  quality  of  that 
people.  That  which  cannot  be  divested  of  its  human 
impress  can  hardly  be  divested  of  all  moral  implication : 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     19 

what  is  not  to  be  confounded  is  also  not  to  be  disso- 
ciated. 

Is  our  absorption  in  material  things  too  great  for 
our  higher  good?  Concentration  on  one  object  must  be 
at  the  expense  of  other  objects.  The  era  of  industrial 
expansion  being  also  an  era  of  specialization,  it  is  inevi- 
table that  this  absorption  should  be  extreme  with  a 
large  proportion  of  the  industrial  community.  How- 
ever, excluding  the  number  of  those  equally  absorbed  in 
liberal  professions  and  pursuits  it  is  not  obser^'ed  that 
the  proportion  of  the  whole  that  is  less  absorbed  in  the 
world's  work  contributes  in  greater  degree  to  the 
world's  advancement  in  any  direction. 

It  is  likewise  inevitable  in  such  an  era  that  this  strik- 
ing industrial  development,  which  includes  the  marvels 
of  applied  science,  should  exercise  a  dominating  influ- 
ence on  men's  minds,  and  it  is  in  the  nature  of  all 
dominating  influences  to  dominate  to  excess.  In  a  world 
of  eras  and  epochs,  the  spirit  of  industrial  enterprise, 
enthusiasm  for  scientific  research,  religious  earnestness, 
intellectual  supremacy,  severally  and  at  best  can  be 
the  distinctive  characteristic  of  only  one  age  at  a  time. 
"Whatever  their  respective  influence  they  cannot  be  con- 
currently the  dominating  influence  of  our  own  wonder- 
ful age  nor  of  more  or  less  wonderful  ages  past  or 
yet  to  come.  It  is  casting  no  slur  on  any  of  these  things 
from  the  first  to  the  last  of  them  to  recognize  this  fact, 
whether  or  not  we  see  evil  in  it  or  a  remedy  for  it. 

"What  will  be  a  thousand  years  from  now  the  most 
persistent  aspect  of  present  day  civilization?  Or  by 
what  means  will  the  master  impulse  of  our  race  be  re- 
vealed to  the  peoples  of  that  distant  time?  It  accords 
with  our  common  thinking  to  suppose  that  the  discov- 


20  PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE 

eries,  inventions  and  combinations  of  the  future  will 
make  those  now  going  seem  crude  and  disconnected  in 
comparison,  and  this,  indeed,  is  the  safer  assumption. 
It  lies  within  the  possibilities,  however,  that  the  reverse 
of  this  should  come  about;  or  if  not  the  imagination 
can  easily  enough  picture  our  successors  as  a  highly 
intelligent  race,  but  entirely  bereft  of  the  faculty  or 
passion  for  invention  and  originality.  The  existing  in- 
dustrial plants  and  organizations  would  continue  in 
use  without  deterioration  with  the  facility  in  operation 
gained  by  occupations  become  traditional  and  acquired 
faculties  hereditary,  while  the  reflecting  and  inquiring 
of  mind  would  regard  with  undiminishing  interest  this 
inheritance  from  the  formative  period  of  general  utili- 
ties, repeating  our  mental  attitude  towards  broken 
Roman  aqueducts  and  colosseums  and  defaced  Egyptian 
temples;  or  as  we  look  upon  the  works  of  the  old  mas- 
ters as  achievements  not  to  be  equaled  by  our  own  cre- 
ative powers. 

Those  who  now  lament  the  destruction  wrought  in 
Greek  temples  would  lament  beyond  measure  if  what 
remains  of  Grecian  art  and  architecture  were  to  be 
finally  swept  away ;  yet  the  vital  message  of  Greece  to 
succeeding  races  of  men  would  still  remain  without  es- 
sential impairment.  It  would  contribute  to  our  appre- 
ciation of  the  message  held  from  the  Land  of  Judea  if 
we  possessed  Solomon's  Temple  or  the  Jerusalem  of 
Herod;  yet  the  message  as  it  stands  is  complete  Qnd 
the  means  for  understanding  and  interpreting  it  ade- 
quate without  such  archeological  treasures.  However 
valuable  the  historical  information  supplied  by  the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics  they  bear  to  us  no  message 
from  the  soul  of  departed  greatness.    If  the  monuments 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  21 

of  the  Nile  valley  say  to  us,  Build  thee  more  stately 
mansions,  0  my  soul,  it  is  our  finding  a  voice  for  a 
dumb  and  groping  past,  whose  feeling,  expressed  in 
massive  constructions  and  in  preserving  and  protecting 
the  bodies  of  the  dead,  was  for  imperishability  rather 
than  for  immortality.  But  whatever  the  message  it  is 
the  monuments  and  temples  alone  that  are  eloquent, 
while  the  hieroglyphics  are  but  the  alphabet  of  feeble- 
ness. 

Alike  if  our  permanent  place  in  history  be  that  of 
pioneers  or  of  those  whose  genius  created  standards 
for  the  uses  of  material  civilization,  our  utmost  achieve- 
ment will  still  be  something  less  than  the  best  within 
the  compass  of  our  whole  endowment  and  determina- 
tion. It  will  not  be  glory  enough.  The  consciousness 
of  earlier  inspirations  wrought  under  the  pressure  of 
an  original  environment  will  return  to  our  later  reck- 
oning to  test  anew  the  quality  of  so  much  accomplish- 
ment. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST. 

It  is  easy  to  use  this  phrase  with  the  accustomed 
familiarity  without  considering  that  its  full  direct 
meaning  is  the  non-survival  both  of  the  unfit  and  of 
the  less  fit ;  that  we  are  in  fact  invited  to  recognize 
therein  the  same  kind  hatchet  face  that  had  already 
smiled  on  us  in  the  doctrine  of  election,  in  the  dictum 
that  the  many  were  made  to  serve  the  few  and  in  the 
common  slang  of  the  devil  take  the  hindermost;  with- 
out considering  also  that  the  specific  use  which  made 
the  term  famous  was  its  application  to  the  origin  of 
species  through  the  survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence. 

We  need  to  look  a  little  at  this  struggle  for  existence, 
for  we  shall  find  that  biologically,  as  erstwhile  theo- 
logically, life,  and  more  abundant  life,  comes  out  of 
death.  That  higher  types  should  be  evolved  in  such  a 
struggle  seems  natural  enough,  but  that  forms  of  life 
in  greater  variety  and  ever  increasing  divergence,  with 
at  least  no  diminution  of  the  teeming  life  itself,  should 
be  the  result  leads  away  from  the  first  simple  notion 
of  a  struggle  for  existence.  We  are  also  to  remember 
that  this  struggle  for  existence  operates  in  the  elimina- 
tion of  the  less  fit  mainly  as  between  races  rather  than 
as  between  individuals  of  the  same  race.  Although  it 
is  the  weaker  members  of  any  species  which  fall  vic- 
tims to  their  natural  enemies,  it  appears  that  this 
merely  serves  to  prevent  deterioration,  as  we  are  not 
presented  with  general  facts  to  establish  that  once  the 

22 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  23 

type  becomes  fixed  and  the  habitat  remains  unchanged 
the  operation  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
results  in  increasing  the  size,  strength  or  sagacity  of 
the  individuals  of  the  species;  and  common  observation 
leads  to  the  assumption  that  the  tendency  is  towards 
the  establishment  of   an  average  standard. 

This  aspect  of  the  matter  is  further  illustrated  by  the 
large  and  significant  part  which  the  social  instinct 
bears  in  the  field  where  the  struggle  for  existence  is  the 
controlling  factor.  The  tendency  to  herd  together  can 
hardly  be  an  advantage  in  securing  pasture,  while  for 
creatures  dependent  on  fleetness  for  security  the  herd 
can  afford  but  slight  protection  against  their  more 
ferocious  enemies;  and  as  to  the  advantage  from  leader- 
ship dependence  on  leaders  would  appear  to  be  as  much 
an  effect  as  a  cause.  The  social  instinct  is  manifest 
even  where  gregariousness  does  not  prevail,  as  in  the 
case  of  birds  which  pair  and  nest  and  cheerfully  hie 
to  the  round-up  after  the  brooding  season  is  past,  for 
the  fall  migration  or  for  the  winter  foraging.  Either 
this  social  instinct  must  constitute  a  fitness  or  the  fit- 
ness in  other  regards  must  enable  its  possessors  to  in- 
dulge their  social  inclination  without  loss.  At  all  events, 
in  the  forest,  on  the  plains  and  in  the  briny,  feathered 
flocks,  browsing  herds  and  finny  shoals  flourish  and 
multiply  and   suffer  no  degeneracy. 

But  man's  interest  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is 
neither  academic  nor  zoological.  It  is  because  he  rec- 
ognizes therein  a  principle  which  touches  him  in  all 
his  concerns.  That  the  principle  should  be  operative 
between  races  and  tribes  accords  with  the  order  of  na- 
ture. If,  however,  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
operates  to  create  active  competition  between  persons 
of  the  same  race  in  a  general  struggle  for  existence  then 


24     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

we  are  bound  to  recognize  a  law  of  human  nature 
rather  than  a  law  of  universal  nature. 

Starting  with  the  primitive  struggle  for  existence 
without,  good  lack,  leaving  it  behind  and  getting  rid 
of  it,  man  sets  about  accumulating  acquired  necessities 
quite  as  imperious  if  less  fundamental  than  the  primi- 
tive ones.  In  other  words,  he  continually  sets  up  new 
objects  to  strive  for  in  his  middle  distance  and  on  his 
far  horizon,  thus  calling  forth  new  standards  of  fitness 
for  surviving  in  the  struggle  thus  extended  and  in- 
tensified. 

With  such  conditions  prevailing  individuality  arises, 
and  when  efficient  tends  to  become  generalized  as  a 
fitness,  leaving  the  way  prepared  for  more  originality 
yet.  But  we  are  not  done  with  paradoxes.  The  social 
instinct  also  constitutes  a  fitness.  "When  the  struggle 
for  existence  comes  to  exceed  a  contest  with  the  soil 
and  with  the  wilderness  it  becomes  mainly  an  affair 
of  human  relations  and  of  the  social  units;  and  indi- 
viduality which  is  anti-social  or  which  is  pushed  to  the 
extreme  of  antagonism  with  society  is  self-destructive 
in  such  a  field.  Society  stands  for  self -protection  and 
cooperation,  and  is  amenable  to  leadership,  which 
when  efficient  is  serviceable  and  beneficial  in  general 
and  in  particular.  That  society  where  individuality  is 
lacking  will  be  deficient  in  leadership,  and  will  be  un- 
progressive  and  decadent.  Where  individuality  dom- 
inates society  to  its  detriment  it  weakens  the  stimulus 
needful  for  the  proper  development  of  both  and  impairs 
its  own  environment. 

Fitness  for  association  is  a  surviving  fitness.  Un- 
fitness for  association  from  incapacity,  selfishness,  un- 
trustworthiness  or  excessive  and  perverted  individual- 
ity can  be  nothing  less  than  want  of  surviving  fitness. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

PRESENT    INDUSTRIAL    TENDENCIES. 

By  a  process  analogous  to  that  by  which  a  word  sig- 
nifying the  crown  of  womanhood  was  transformed 
into  the  adjective  of  feminine  ugliness  did  a  term  ex- 
pressive of  confidence  and  security  come  to  stand  for 
distrust  and  detestation.  As  we  have  it  that  there  are 
good  trusts  and  bad  trusts,  unfaltering  trusts  and  mis- 
placed trusts,  remember  that  what  you  take  on  trust  is 
taken  on  your  own  trust,  good,  bad,  misplaced  or  un- 
faltering, and  not  on  mine  of  like  undetermined  con- 
sistency. 

"What  were  the  underlying  conditions  which  made 
possible  the  formation  of  large  industrial  combinations 
and  which  made  the  proprietors  of  established  and  suc- 
cessful enterprises  more  than  willing  to  lead  or  follow 
in  the  general  movement? 

Under  free  competition  the  fittest  to  survive  proved 
to  be  the  largest  and  best  equipped  concerns.  This 
drove  the  business,  so  far  as  ownership  and  management 
is  to  be  understood,  into  the  hands  of  the  few.  The 
constant  need  for  increasing  plants  and  installing  new 
machinery  and  processes  kept  up  the  need  for  more 
capital.  At  the  same  time  there  was  an  increase  of 
capital  seeking  investment  in  the  hands  of  a  growing 
investor  class  comprising  the  descendants  of  fortune 
builders,  those  who  had  sold  out  after  meeting  with 
success  and  all  who  had  made  accumulations  by  what- 

25 


26  PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE 

ever  means.  The  sons  of  founders  of  industries  felt  a 
diminishing  desire  to  follow  aggressively  their  fathers' 
careers  or  found  the  problem  confronting  them  that  of 
keeping  and  maintaining  what  they  already  had  of  for- 
tune, income  or  acquired  proportion  of  an  existing 
trade.  The  pioneer  work  was  mostly  done,  trade  con- 
ditions were  more  settled,  the  personal  rivalries  and 
distrusts  of  the  pushing  formative  period  had  mostly 
gone  out  with  the  light  of  those  they  had  animated,  or, 
like  ambition  itself,  had  been  transferred  to  a  larger 
field.  Business  and  industry  were  become  impersonal 
in  character. 

The  cautious  investor,  not  wishing  to  put  all  his  eggs 
in  one  basket,  invested  his  money  in  the  stocks  of  sev- 
eral railroads  and  industrial  corporations.  These  being 
in  competition  one  with  another  he  found  his  dollars 
employed  in  fighting  each  other  instead  of  in  earning 
the  best  possible  returns.  So  far  as  he  had  any  influ- 
ence it  would  be  exerted  in  bringing  such  competition 
to  an  end.  The  conservative  investor,  and  most  large 
investors  are  conservative,  is  attracted  by  security  of 
principal  and  certainty  of  income  rather  than  by 
chances  of  large  returns.  If  you  wish  to  secure  capi- 
tal for  an  enterprise  subject  to  competition  while  of- 
fering the  possibility  of  large  profits,  seek  a  man  of 
grit  who  is  prepared  to  back  up  his  venture  when  it 
becomes  necessary  to  do  so,  and  think  not  to  attract 
idle  money  loaning  at  two  per  cent.  IIow  competition 
may  effect  future  profits  is  beyond  any  man's  predic- 
tion, and  all  past  showings  possess  little  value ;  whereas 
with  the  probabilities  of  competition  minimized,  some 
basis  for  a  calculation  exists. 

The   business    man    who    embarks    in   a   competitive 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  27 

enterprise  on  equality  of  terms  depends  on  his  own  ca- 
pacity to  become  a  successful  competitor,  and  whoever 
may  be  disposed  to  contribute  capital  in  any  manner 
invests  in  his  personality  as  much  as  in  the  undertaking 
on  its  merits.  It  is  obvious  that  the  financial  resources 
of  such  a  man  beyond  his  very  own  are  strictly  lim- 
ited, and  the  bigness  of  his  enterprise  or  its  being  in- 
corporated makes  little  difference.  On  the  other  hand, 
an  industry  organized  on  the  basis  of  a  common  own- 
ership, management  and  control,  legitimately  capital- 
ized and  with  men  of  reputation  at  the  head,  attracts 
investors  without  distinction  or  restriction,  and  so  is 
in  a  position  to  obtain  the  capital  necessary  for  its  de- 
velopment in  more  liberal  supply  and  at  lower  rates. 

Thus  the  supreme  direction  and  control  gets  into 
still  fewer  hands  while  ownership  is  extended.  Indeed, 
it  is  control  that  is  sought  and  not  exclusive  owner- 
ship. The  man  who  grasps  after  control  must  be 
grasping  of  control  and,  therefore,  cannot  afford  to 
grasp  the  whole.  Instead  of  the  grasping  money-lender 
it  is  the  money-lender  grasping  or  otherwise,  lender  of 
his  own  or  of  the  deposits  of  other  people,  that  he  con- 
stantly has  recourse  unto  and  with  whom  he  pledges 
both  his  securities  and  his  reputation  as  a  financier. 
Instead  of  the  smug  bourgeois  carefully  piling  up  the 
dollars,  the  type  is  that  of  the  general  of  imperial  de- 
signs seeking  new  worlds  to  conquer.  The  market  value 
of  the  earlier  success  must  be  the  credit  basis  for  car- 
rying out  new  ventures.  But  to  establish  market  value, 
stock  must  be  bought  and  sold.  To  sell  part  of  the 
stock  ownership  in  the  established  success,  therefore, 
not  only  brings  in  cash,  but  improves  the  standing  of 
the  remaining  stock  held  as  banking  collateral.    Again, 


28     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

ownership  is  extended  and  much  needed  capital  is 
brought  in. 

It  would  be  more  generous  to  invite  the  general  in- 
vestor in  on  the  ground  floor  at  the  start.  But  the 
project  is  not  an  investment,  but  a  speculation  at  this 
stage,  and  while  the  investor  becomes  a  partner,  the 
one  thing  the  speculator  can  be  depended  on  doing  is  to 
desert  and  throw  his  stock  on  the  market  at  the  very 
time  when  his  support  would  be  most  appreciated. 

All  new  undertakings  are  in  a  measure  speculative, 
and  few  industrial  leaders  are  strangers  to  speculation. 
Some  industrial  concerns  have  been  over-capitalized, 
and  some  have  been  brought  out  essentially  for  specu- 
lative purposes.  Nevertheless,  the  difference  between 
speculation  which  is  incidental  to  industrial  develop- 
ment and  industrial  development  which  is  merely  a 
basis  for  speculation  is  very  great.  Razor-strops  are 
sometimes  made  to  sell  and  not  for  use,  and  stocks  are 
sometimes  made  to  sell  and  not  for  legitimate  capital 
requirements.  These  things  are  characteristic  of  pres- 
ent industrial  tendencies  by  so  much  as  they  stand  for 
common  human  tendencies  at  all  stages  of  the  game. 

Given  the  essentiality  of  the  matter  the  facility  for 
securing  capital  for  any  industrial  organization  consti- 
tutes a  surviving  fitness,  and  such  a  signal  advantage 
for  any  industry  benefits  that  industry  as  a  whole,  and 
apart  from  collateral  advantages  and  disadvantages 
benefits  all  who  are  dependent  on  it  or  are  served  by  it 
to  the  farthest  radius  of  its  operations  and  commerce. 

There  are  also  disadvantages  and  limitations.  Not 
all  industrial  combinations  have  been  successful,  not 
all  industries  lend  themselves  to  organized  control,  pos- 
sibly in  no  case  is  such  control  complete.  In  many 
divisions  of  industry  price  competition  is  secondary  to 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     29 

that  between  the  suitability  and  adaptability  of  ma- 
chines, processes  and  products  to  varying  requirements, 
needs  and  tastes,  upon  which  combination  has  little  ef- 
fect. 

The  main  objection,  of  course,  is  that  combination 
lessens  or  puts  an  end  to  competition.  Competition 
means  small  profits  for  manufacturer  and  dealer,  but 
not  necessarily  low  prices  for  the  consumer.  It  may 
hinder  cheapening  in  the  cost  of  production.  It  has 
always  been  public  policy  to  preserve  a  free  field  for 
competition.  Nothing  has  happened  to  call  for  or  jus- 
tify any  change  in  such  public  policy.  The  problem 
presented  is  how  to  compel  people  to  compete  who  do 
not  want  to  compete  and  who  have  found  out  how  to 
avoid  competing,  by  means  of  laws  which  shall  be  gen- 
eral and  equal  in  their  nature  and  operation.  Doubt- 
less the  thing  can  be  done ;  but  with  what  results  ?  The 
traditional  objection  to  monopoly  is  against  monopoly 
in  restraint  of  trade,  it  being  assumed  that  all  mo- 
nopoly must  be  in  restraint  of  trade.  The  only  other 
kind  of  general  restraint  of  trade  ever  considered  has 
been  restraint  of  foreign  trade  for  the  benefit  of  do- 
mestic trade,  which  has  always  been  a  contentious  sub- 
ject. 

The  idea  has  been  advanced  that  no  one  concern 
should  be  allowed  by  law  to  control  more  than,  say,  fifty 
per  cent  of  the  product  of  any  given  industry.  This 
idea  has  been  pronounced  crude,  but  the  significant 
thing  is  that  no  other  mode  of  dealing  with  the  matter 
by  general  laws  has  been  forthcoming.  Shall  the  pro- 
posed restriction  be  based  on  nominal  capacity,  or  on 
actual  production?  To  restrain  production  regardless 
of  capacity  would  be  restraint  of  trade  by  statute  to 
make  any  old-time    anti-monopolist  gasp.     Restriction 


30  PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE 

according  to  nominal  capacity  must  be  intended.  It 
would  not  be  extraordinary,  however,  if  the  concern 
with  legal  warrant  for  controlling  one-half  the  nominal 
capacity,  by  superior  skill  and  enterprise  and  by  work- 
ing double  shifts,  should  presently  be  found  doing  from 
sixty  to  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  business.  Very 
well;  this  will  mean  the  active  competition  which  ful- 
fils the  aim  of  the  proposed  measure.  But  the  certain 
consequence  of  such  active  competition  will  be  to  drive 
some  weak  competitor  out  of  business  with  the  result 
that  the  successful  competition  of  the  large  concern  will 
be  visited  on  its  own  head,  for  behold  the  wiping  out 
of  the  concern  unable  to  compete  reduces  the  propor- 
tion of  the  whole  in  the  hands  of  independent  con- 
cerns and  increases  the  relative  proportion  of  nominal 
capacity  of  the  larger  concern  in  excess  of  the  legal  lim- 
it. There  is  only  one  course  for  it  to  pursue — raise  its 
prices  and  "hold  the  umbrella"  over  the  crippled  com- 
petitor in  order  to  maintain  its  own  legal  status;  other- 
wise it  will  be  compelled  to  dispose  of  part  of  its  plants 
on  the  basis  of  profits  and  valuations  established  by  its 
own  destructive  competition. 

The  smaller  competitors  may  get  together  to  follow 
the  lead  of  the  big  producer,  or  they  may  remain  di- 
vided by  mutual  jealousies.  There  is  precedent  for 
both  suppositions.  In  either  case  improvements  in 
methods  and  deviooa  will  most  naturally  accrue  to  the 
best  managed  concern,  which  can  afford  also  to  pay  the 
best,  so  that  the  time  will  not  be  distant  when  the  fifty 
per  cent  concern  will  secure  seventy-five  per  cent  of 
the  trade  on  its  own  terms. 

Or,  possibly,  ninety  per  cent  of  the  business  may  be 
divided  between  two  large  corporations  leaving  a  mea- 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     31 

ger  ten  per  cent  scattered.  The  company  producing, 
say,  forty-eight  per  cent  of  the  output  issues  its  price- 
lists  to  the  trade.  The  manager  of  the  concern  whose 
output  is  a  scant  forty  per  cent  of  the  whole  considers 
what  course  to  pursue.  If  he  quotes  lower  prices  he 
will  presently  find  his  company  exceeding  the  legal 
limit  with  disastrous  consequences.  If  he  names  the 
same  prices  he  may  have  to  answer  a  charge  of  con- 
spiracy. On  the  whole,  the  safer  course  is  to  quote 
higher  prices.  His  larger  competitor  dare  not  exceed 
his  already  full  proportion  and,  therefore,  must  decline 
further  orders,  and  as  his  customers  must  be  able  to 
rely  on  deliveries  and  uniformity  of  grade,  they  can- 
not afford  to  do  business  with  irresponsible  parties.  In 
any  case,  as  the  laws  aimed  at  him  are  not  those  against 
rebating,  there  is  always  a  way  of  coming  to  terms  with 
his  customers  and  holding  his  trade. 

Then  let  us  try  a  twenty-five  per  cent  limit  and  have 
small  competitive  concerns  instead  of  large  ones  of 
more  economical  operation.  But  to  limit  size  is  to 
limit  all  incentive  for  building  up.  Enterprise  and 
improvements  must  have  the  result  of  upsetting  the 
legal  status  of  the  most  enterprising  and  pushing. 

The  "trusts"  have  put  some  people  out  of  business. 
Free  competition  has  done  the  same.  There  is  nothing 
appealing  to  the  heart  about  the  good  old  times  of  un- 
restricted  competition  in  prices,  as  it  is  vidthin  the 
memory  of  aU  that  the  ecjqjresged  formula  of  that  period 
was  "every  man  for  himself  and  the  devil  take  the 
hindermost."  And  as  to  looking  forward,  with  the  de- 
velopment of  industry  under  competition  as  its  domi- 
nating principle,  competition  more  merciless  must  ac- 
company each  advancing  step. 


32     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

But  such  vast  consolidations  involve  concentration 
of  power,  and  all  concentration  of  power  is  dangerous. 
This  repeats  the  contention  of  fifty  years  ago  in  rela- 
tion to  railway  consolidation.  The  formation  of  rail- 
way systems,  however,  is  not  work  that  anyone  to-day 
would  think  of  undoing.  Transportation  problems  have 
occupied  a  leading  place  in  the  economic  discussions 
of  all  these  years,  yet  it  may  be  said  that  the  railroads 
have  worked  out  these  problems  from  their  own  ex- 
perience with  small  contribution  from  outside  sources. 
There  has  been  much  railroad  legislation,  yet  such  leg- 
islation has  made  no  man's  reputation  in  public  life. 
Beyond  enforcing  the  basic  principles  as  to  common 
carriers,  practically  the  only  laws  from  which  any  ef- 
fectiveness is  looked  for  to-day  are  those  framed  out  of 
an  abundant  past  experience  to  prevent  palpable  and 
indefensible  abuses. 

The  abuses  of  power  complained  of  on  the  part  of 
the  "trusts"  have  been  mostly  those  which  exposure 
sufficed  to  correct.  The  principle  of  all's  fair  in  love 
and  war  having  been  more  or  less  prevalent  in  the  world 
of  business  for  two  or  three  generations,  not  to  say 
time  out  of  mind,  enlarged  opportunities  for  its  exer- 
cise did  not  at  once  bring  an  enlarged  sense  of  account- 
ability, and  those  who  had  not  learned  a  different  les- 
son in  their  day  of  small  things  found  being  the  goat 
in  the  day  of  groat  things  all  the  more  uncomfortable. 
When  a  man  reaches  the  point  where  he  is  no  longer 
shielded  by  his  insignificance,  higher  standards  of  busi- 
ness conduct  are  forced  upon  him. 

The  accepted  notion  of  an  "industrial  combine"  is 
one  controlling  from  sixty  to  seventy-five  per  cent  of 
the  total  product  of  a  given  industry,  which  in  conse- 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     33 

qnence  is  a  dominating  factor  in  that  industry.  Com- 
petition, therefore,  is  not  eliminated,  but  instead  of 
the  dominating  factor  remains  as  a  corrective. 

Another  and  larger  factor  remains.  The  policy  of 
increasing  the  capacity  and  efficiency  of  units  of  pro- 
duction in  order  to  lower  productive  costs  still  con- 
tinues, thus  increasing  the  total  output  and  calling  for 
constantly  expanding  markets  to  absorb  the  increase. 
Markets  must,  therefore,  be  fostered  in  every  way  and 
every  encouragement  extended  to  promote  consumption. 
No  industrial  ''combine"  feels  sure  enough  of  its  po- 
sition to  neglect  improvements  in  machinery  and  pro- 
cesses; in  other  words,  it  is  still  under  the  law  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest. 

Reference  is  often  made  to  the  fact  that  the  ulti- 
mate effect  of  labor-saving  machinery  is  to  increase  the 
employment  of  labor.  The  extension  of  this  principle 
is  that  all  increase  in  the  efficiency  of  industry  leads 
ultimately  to  increase  of  employment  among  all  classes, 
alike  in  the  lower  and  the  higher  ranks,  whatever  tem- 
porary disturbance  may  take  place  in  consequence.  The 
"trusts"  have  not  been  prolific  of  labor  disputes  and 
strikes.  If  the  charge  holds  that  these  consolidations 
raise  prices,  this  serves  to  protect  the  "American  scale 
of  wages"  at  least  as  well  as  protective  import  duties. 
As  between  our  trust  medicine  and  our  protection  to 
home  industry  syrup  we  know  the  kind  we  have  always 
had  won't  kill  us;  and  if  we  find  that  taking  both  to- 
gether results  in  our  paying  twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent 
above  the  prices  at  which  some  leading  products  are 
supplied  from  home  factories  to  foreign  countries,  the 
great  moral  lesson  to  be  drawn  is  that  it  is  for  the  in- 
telligent voter  to  enlighten  his  Congressman  and  not  to 


34  PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE 

depend  on  the  inward  light  which  guides  the  latter. 

Stock  ownership  will  naturally  extend  with  the 
growth  of  confidence  in  the  permanency  of  the  big  cor- 
porations. That  it  docs  not  extend  faster  is  either 
because  corporate  securities  already  enjoy  all  the  credit 
they  are  entitled  to,  given  the  basis  of  capitalization, 
or  because  stock  exchange  speculation  pushes  the  price 
too  high.  If  trust  magnates  keep  their  stocks  it  is  not 
evidence  of  their  grasping  disposition  but  of  the  ju- 
dicious  caution  of  the  investors. 


CHAPTER  V. 

TRUSTS   AND   THE   TARIFF. 

That  industrial  past  is  not  yet  remote  when  the 
proposition  to  merge  into  a  single  interest  the  already 
enormous  independent  concerns  engaged  in  a  given  pro- 
ductive industry  would  not  have  seemed  the  outcome 
of  a  practical  mind.  From  no  one  would  this  com- 
mentary have  come  as  a  final  pronouncement  more 
surely  than  from  the  practical  men  at  the  head  of  the 
business  world.  Enactments  to  make  effective  the  com- 
mon law  prohibition  of  agreements  in  restraint  of  trade 
had  occasionally  to  be  invoked,  but  created  monopolies 
in  actual  operation,  apart  from  those  resulting  from 
patented   inventions,    were    practically   undiscoverable. 

The  great  change  which  has  come  about  in  a  single 
generation  is  perhaps  realized.  But,  after  twenty 
years  of  discussion,  is  it  to  be  said  that  the  transforma- 
tion wrought  in  the  conditions  of  the  business  world 
upon  which  the  observed  change  is  based  is  fully 
grasped?  The  only  embodiment  into  law  of  the  general 
realization  of  the  change  is  what  was  intended  to  be  a 
flat-footed  prohibition  of  anything  savoring  of  indus- 
trial concentration,  which,  expressing  the  popular  dis- 
trust and  alarm  in  view  of  the  manifest  tendency  to- 
wards monopoly,  so  far  from  being  evidence  of  appre- 
ciation of  the  changed  factors  in  the  case,  evidenced  a 
determination  not  to  consider  the  nature  and  implica- 
tions of  such  changes  at  all.  Do  such  industrial  changes 

35 


36  PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

portend  alteration  either  of  present  political  institu- 
tions or  of  the  existing  social  order?  It  were  better 
that  the  possibilities  in  these  directions  should  be  ex- 
aggerated rather  than  underestimated  if  thus  alone  is 
thorough  examination  and  comprehension  of  the  matter 
to  be  attained. 

This  purpose  to  forbid  all  industrial  consolidation, 
on  the  honest  face  of  it,  ignored  alike  changing  condi- 
tions and  working  principles  of  development,  past, 
present  and  future.  One  thing  only  was  considered  and 
aimed  at,  the  abuses  of  monopoly.  But  one  large  fac- 
tor directly  concerned,  both  with  monopoly  and  its 
abuses,  was  already  wholly  within  the  province  of  leg- 
islative enactment  and  control — the  protective  tariff. 
Now  two  main  theories  touching  the  relation  of  the 
tariff  to  the  trusts  have  been  advanced.  One,  that  the 
tariff  created  the  trusts  and  is  responsible  for  their 
continuance;  the  other,  that  removing  the  tariff  would 
end  the  existence  of  the  smaller  concerns  still  keeping 
up  the  struggle  and  leave  the  trusts  alone  in  their  su- 
premacy. Obviously  the  admission  of  either  argument 
falsifies  the  other.  And  yet  industrial  conditions  can- 
not be  reviewed  without  considering  the  tariff,  trust 
or  no  trust.  An  understanding  of  the  tariff  question, 
therefore,  becomes  essential  whatever  the  conclusion  re- 
specting monopolies. 

From  the  days  of  mingled  chronicle  and  myth,  the 
advisability  of  getting  what  one  wants  by  giving  in 
exchnnge  what  one  does  not  need,  has  been  evident  to 
the  untutored  minds  of  Eskimos,  Algonquins,  dwellers 
in  Papua  and  on  the  Congo,  their  predecessors  and  suc- 
cessors in  civilization's  hintr-rland;  while  among  peo- 
ples devoted  to  civilized   industry  the  advisability  of 


PKOGRESS   FROM   EXPERIENCE  37 

trading  ^\]:^di  cdn  be  produced  advantageously  at  home 
for  what  can  be  produced  to  greater  advantage  by  oth- 
er peoples  in  other  lands  has  not  seemed  to  require 
demonstration.  Hence  the  natural  strength  of  the  free- 
trade  position.  But,  ran  the  argument,  the  free-trade 
position  supposes  all  the  industrial  nations  to  have 
adopted  the  principle  in  practice,  and  further  supposes 
all  the  industrial  nations  to  have  attained  substantially 
the  same  degree  of  industrial  development.  Free-trade 
England  is  a  tight  little  island  devoted  mainly  to  man- 
ufacturing, banking  and  commerce,  having  indeed  the 
advantage  of  an  abundant  coal  supply,  but  in  great 
measure  dependent  on  foreign  raw  materials,  and  espe- 
cially dependent  on  foreign  markets  in  disposing  of  her 
industrial  products.  America,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
a  continental  empire,  of  diverse  natural  resources  in 
process  of  development,  and  offering  the  most  extensive 
domestic  consuming  market  in  the  world.  In  other 
words,  people  of  the  same  race  in  the  land  of  their 
origin  and  in  the  land  of  their  expansion  find  them- 
selves in  a  diametrically  opposite  situation  as  regards 
conditions  of  industry  and  supplies  and  as  regards  the 
relative  importance  of  domestic  and  foreign  markets. 
The  familiar  arguments  as  to  protection  of  home  in- 
dustry during  the  development  stage,  and  the  advan- 
tages of  a  diversity  of  industries  which  in  turn  eon- 
tributes  to  create  a  home  market,  are  all  understand- 
able enough ;  but  the  point  to  be  kept  in  sight  is  that 
whatever  their  validity  they  are  necessarily  subordinate 
to  the  main  proposition,  that  commerce,  or  the  inter- 
national exchange  of  products,  is  the  fundamental 
economic  law  of  the  industrial  world.  Modifications  of 
and  exceptions  to  a  general  principle  in  no  wise  over- 
throw such  principle,  or  even  weaken  it. 


38    PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

Protection  against  price  competition  means  keeping 
up  the  price  in  all  cases.  "Where  protection  is  not  need- 
ed and  where  the  price  is  determined  by  domestic  com- 
petition, the  protective  law  as  such  becomes  inopera- 
tive. But,  again  runs  the  argument,  the  higher  price 
fosters  domestic  industry,  the  domestic  market  and 
diversity  of  employment,  and  the  payer  of  the  higher 
price  is  compensated  through  the  general  prosperity 
thus  brought  about.  That  he  receives  compensation  in 
this  manner  is  true  beyond  question;  that  he  is  fully 
compensated  thereby  is  the  question  which  remains 
without  a  final  answer. 

Protective  duties  are  not  at  a  uniform  rate,  but  are 
graduated  to  afford,  in  theory  at  least,  a  necessary  de- 
gree of  protection  without  excess.  Whatever  they  ac- 
complish they  cannot  be  defended  on  any  other  theory. 
Articles  of  general  use  in  a  finished  state  are  subject 
to  a  protective  duty,  let  us  say,  of  from  twenty  to  sixty 
per  cent  on  the  wholesale  value;  the  extremes  of  pro- 
tection not  now  concerning  us  nor  the  question  of  rates 
being  more  than  enough  to  the  declared  end.  Is  the 
man  who  pays  the  higher  price  for  the  twenty  per  cent 
protected  article  fully  compensated  therefor  in  the  in- 
direct manner  stated?  "Whatever  the  nature  of  the 
demonstration,  if  he  be  open  to  conviction,  the  difficulty 
of  satisfying  him  may  not  be  great.  Is  the  man  who 
pays  the  addition  to  the  price  corresponding  to  the  sixty 
per  cent  rate  of  protection  fully  compensated  therefor 
in  the  general  and  indirect  manner  claimed?  As  pro- 
tection the  sixty  per  cent  rate  may  be  more  needed  than 
the  twenty  per  cent  rate,  but  that  is  beside  the  mark. 
The  demonstration  required  is  to  show  to  somebody's 


PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE  39 

satisfaction  that  the  man  who  without  choice  or  pref- 
erence represents  not  the  industry  but  its  consuming 
market  is  not  paying  ten  cents  for  a  five  cent  ride. 
For  it  is  not  for  the  consuming  market  aforesaid  to 
seek  enlightenment ;  it  is  for  the  industry  claiming  the 
sixty  per  cent  protection  to  demonstrate  the  profitable- 
ness thereof  for  those  who  must  accept  its  exactions 
thereunder.  It  is  always  possible  to  pay  too  much  for 
the  best  of  good  things.  The  supposition  that  an  in- 
dustry which  may  exist  with  sufficient  protection  de- 
serves to  be  encouraged  at  whatever  cost  to  the  major- 
ity is  a  denial  both  of  the  basic  principle  of  benefit  in 
the  exchange  of  commodities  and  of  the  principle  of 
the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number. 

And  what  has  experience  to  say  touching  the  point? 
That  in  a  country  of  cheap  cotton  and  dear  wool,  "all 
wool"  ranks  among  luxuries  to  be  taxed,  while  mixed 
cotton  and  wool  is  bought,  paid  for  and  worn  by  voters 
for  protected  prosperity  who  have  not  the  courage  of 
their  convictions.  For  if  their  Avorks  corresponded  to 
their  economic  faith,  they  would  surely  insist  on  paying 
the  exaggerated  price  for  the  much  protected  wool  in 
the  confident  expectation  that  the  tax  for  prosperity 
thus  invited  will  presently  reappear  in  their  pay  en- 
velopes without  the  intervention  of  a  strike  or  even  of 
a  grievance  committee. 

It  is  not  denying  virtue  and  advantage  for  the  pro- 
tective tariff  to  point  out  that  its  avowed  purpose  is 
the  restriction  of  competition,  unrestricted  domestic 
compel iticn  l^eing  the  essential  condition  depended  on 
for  its  justification.  Historically  and  by  inherency 
the  tariff  was  responsible  for  the  rise  of  monopoly  only 
in  so  far  as  through  furnishing  the  basis  for  the  abuse 


40  PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

of  monopoly  did  it  encourage  and  stimulate  combina- 
tion. Recasting  the  tariff  would  not  break  up  industrial 
combinations,  but  would  minimize  the  opportunities  for 
the  abuse  of  monopoly;  would  place  such  combinations 
strictly  on  the  basis  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  If, 
on  this  basis,  the  smaller  concerns  appealing  for  pro- 
tection succumb,  it  will  mean  that  their  restraint  of 
monopolistic  tendencies  has  been  of  the  most  moderate 
kind  and  that  they  have  been  making  a  living  under 
the  trust's  umbrella. 

The  alternative  course  is  the  continuance  of  a  system 
artificial  in  both  directions;  namely,  the  protection  of 
domestic  industry  against  foreign  competition  coupled 
with  the  protection  of  the  domestic  consumer  against 
domestic  monopoly  rendered  formidable  by  the  first 
half  of  the  policy  undertaken.  As  an  abstract  propo- 
sition it  should  be  at  once  apparent  that  the  first  half 
of  the  program  is  more  easily  carried  out  than  the  sec- 
ond half ;  that  it  is  easier  to  make  a  tangle  than  to  un- 
tangle, to  get  into  metaphorical  hot  water  than  to  get 
out  again,  wittingly  or  unwittingly  to  do  an  injury 
than  to  redress  it.  Whatever  may  be  said  about  the 
customs  administration,  as  an  instrument  of  protection 
it  accomplishes  its  object  thoroughly ;  while  what  to  do 
and  how  to  do  it  in  the  matter  of  protection  against 
home-made  monopoly  has  met  with  no  satisfying  solu- 
tion for  either  side  of  the  controversy.  The  official  tar- 
iff makers  represent  their  constituents  in  theory.  It  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  if  this  means  that  in  fact  they 
represent  that  portion  of  their  constituents  which  knows 
what  it  wants  and  is  most  insistent,  consistent  and 
united  in  its  demands.  But  neither  in  theory  or  in 
fact,  neither   in  pretense  nor  by  ascription,  are  they 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  41 

to  be  held  as  experts  in  the  matter  of  tariff  policy  and 
schedules  and  industrial  results  consequent  thereupon. 
Ihe  sphere  of  their  activities  is  either  too  general  or 
too  limited  to  permit  of  their  becoming  such  qualified 
experts. 

Neither  have  these  lawmakers  so  far  qualified  as  ex- 
perts on  the  subject  of  the  continuous  industrial  devel- 
opment of  the  last  twenty  years  in  relation  to  the  gen- 
eral interests  involved.  Waiting  for  a  popular  mandate 
and  not  presuming  to  popular  guidance  and  leadership 
has  been  the  role  commonly  adopted. 

Industrial  combination  is  not  an  artificial  system 
springing  up  within  artificial  tariff  barriers,  nor  yet  a 
creation  of  artful  and  designing  schemers  in  defiance  of 
all  economic  law,  but  is  the  natural  outcome,  as  legiti- 
mate as  inevitable,  of  industrial  development  and 
economic  conditions  led  by  men  of  the  stamp,  experi- 
ence and  expertness  who  in  all  ages  have  been  found 
at  the  front  of  important  enterprises. 

With  these  general  factors  in  the  case  the  nearest  ap- 
proach practicable  to  non-obstruction  of  the  natural 
course  of  trade  and  industrial  development  is  the  safer 
policy.  Whatever  may  be  the  teachings  of  experience 
under  such  natural  conditions  the  conclusions  will  be 
more  free  of  obscurities  and  vexatious  complications. 
With  self-preservation  and  the  security  of  the  capital 
invited  through  concentration  of  aim  and  effort  as  the 
motive  for  industrial  combination,  instead  of  the  incen- 
tive of  promotion  profits  made  possible  from  high  capi- 
talization apparently  justified  by  earning  power  shown, 
a  healthier  basis  will  be  established  for  the  adjustment 
of  the  mutual  interests  of  a  completely  interrelated 
industrial  commonwealth. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

INDUSTRY   AND    THE    STATE. 

We  live  under  a  complex  industrial  civilization,  some- 
times mistermed  an  artificial  civilization  from  the  fact 
that  so  large  a  proportion  of  humankind  is  occupied  in 
providing  or  procuring  other  than  essential  needs.  For 
instance,  according  to  the  United  States  Census  for 
1900,  about  thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  population  of 
this  country  was  engaged  in  agriculture,  including 
those  engaged  in  sheep  and  cattle  raising  and  in  cotton 
growing;  the  proportion  having  fallen  from  forty-four 
per  cent  in  1880.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that  our  exports 
of  agricultural  products  still  greatly  exceeded  in  bulk, 
value  and  importance  all  other  products  in  our  for- 
eign commerce  in  either  direction;  in  other  words,  sub- 
stantially one-third  the  population  were  producing  a 
large  exportable  surplus  of  the  raw  materials  of  food 
and  clothing. 

The  wants  of  civilized  man  grow  principally  in  other 
directions  than  in  that  of  food  supply,  and  industry 
with  its  vast  and  complex  organization  is  the  outcome. 
The  wants  and  desires  of  man,  growing  with  his  growth 
in  civilization,  are  the  motive  force  which  has  created 
and  built  up  this  ever  extend'ng  industrial  and  com- 
mercial fabric.  Men  labor  and  strive  to  keep  the  wolf 
from  the  door,  to  provide  for  the  future,  to  supply  their 
primary,  secondary  and  tertiary  necessities,  to  improve 
their  condition,  to    fulfill  their  ambition,    to  win  the 

42 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     43 

prizes  of  life;  and  the  wheels  of  industry  spin  under  the 
well-directed  and  always  growing  impulse. 

Labor  produces  wealth ;  therefore,  wealth  is  produced 
by  labor.  So  let  it  be.  Historically,  however,  what 
labor  aided  by  thrift  and  native  intelligence  produced 
was  the  homespun  age  of  sentimental  memory.  But  the 
preacher  who  today  looks  forward  instead  of  backward 
to  a  homespun  age,  idealized  or  revitalized,  finds  few 
to  give  him  heed. 

Labor,  with  increased  intelligence,  fortified  by  tech- 
nical skill  and  the  contributions  of  scientific  knowledge 
and  directed  by  expert  management  and  enlarged  busi- 
ness capacity  and  experience,  has  produced  a  very  dif- 
ferent industrial  order,  bringing  with  it  changed  social 
conditions  and  aspects. 

The  gains  from  successful  industry  accrue  in  largest 
measure  to  the  "business  end" — i.  e.,  to  the  business 
management  and  to  the  capital  ventured  in  establish- 
ing and  making  a  success  of  the  enterprise ;  next,  to  the 
expert  talent  employed;  next,  to  the  skilled  workers; 
and,  last,  to  the  unskilled  laborers.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  business  profits  on  the  above  basis  and  the 
wages  earned  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale  is  immense,  and 
would  be  immense  under  any  possible  theory  of  rela- 
tive "social  service." 

But  on  the  principle  of  the  greatest  good  to  the 
greatest  number,  why  should  not  industry  be  conducted 
for  the  benefit  of  the  workers  or  of  society  at  large  for 
its  chief  object?  And  why  should  not  the  State,  in 
which  all  are  equal  partners,  take  the  place  of  capital- 
ist, private  owner  and  business  manager?  The  motive 
force  which  has  erected  the  edifice  is  undisguised  selfish- 
ness,   whether    enlightened    by    altruism    or    refusing 


44     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

the  light;  while  a  world  from  v>hich  grinding  poverty 
and  burdens  greater  than  can  be  borne  on  the  one  hand 
and  on  the  other  the  arrogance  of  power  and  possession 
are  forever  banished,  is  the  aim  and  hope  of  the  noble- 
hearted. 

This  is  one  statement  of  the  matter. 

Another  statement  of  the  matter  is  that  while  a  de- 
veloping and  expanding  industry  is  requisite  for  the 
profit  of  the  rich  it  is  still  more  necessary  for  the  sub- 
sistence of  the  poor,  and  that  the  cessation  of  profits 
to  the  rich  does  not  at  all  make  up  to  the  poor  for  a 
stagnant  or  declining  state  of  industry.  In  other  words, 
the  same  effects  must  be  obtained  by  totally  different 
causes  and  motives.  The  proposed  substitution  of  in- 
dustrial motive  is  not  a  transition,  but  a  reversal.  The 
paralyzing  of  the  hitherto  industrial  motive  is  the  one 
certainty  in  the  case ;  the  success  and  efficacy  of  the  new 
principle  of  action  will  remain   problematical. 

Meanwhile  the  trusts  are  leading  the  way  and  sim- 
plifying the  problem  of  ultimate  government  owner- 
ship of  all  industry.  Yes;  on  the  supposition  that  the 
captain  of  industry  presses  the  button  and  the  cor- 
porals and  privates  do  the  rest;  not  otherwise.  If 
any  one  is  disposed  to  question  the  statement  that  the 
trusts  are  subject  to  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  men  at  the 
head  of  their  management  get  and  keep  their  places  by 
virtue  of  that  law.  Men  of  inherited  wealth  only  are 
not  found  in  such  positions. 

And  why  not  the  survival  of  the  fittest  with  our 
politicians  and  representaives?  Why  did  "Webster,  Cal- 
houn, Clay,  Douglas  and  Seward  fail  of  the  Presidency? 
Why  does  history   record   that  most  of  the  important 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  45 

measures  passed  by  Congress  have  been  compromise 
legislation?  The  answer  which  may  explain  the  facts 
will  not  change  the   facts. 

For  the  success  of  any  large  industrial  enterprise, 
whether  measured  in  dollars  and  cents  or  by  any  other 
standard,  the  prime  essentials  are  executive  capacity, 
expert  or  engineering  talent,  and  business  judgment 
and  direction.  The  relative  order  of  importance  need 
not  be  considered.  The  first  two  essentials  named  are 
measurably  ascertainable  quantities,  but  business  abil- 
ity escapes  all  attempts  at  exact  analysis,  offers  no 
basis  upon  which  given  results  may  be  predicated,  and 
has  no  criterion  save  success.  Therefore,  has  it  come 
about  that  for  the  business  man  it  has  been  thought 
necessary  to  suppose  a  "secret  of  success;"  and  al- 
though the  business  man  and  his  secret  of  success  are 
a  good  deal  less  of  a  mystery  to  his  associates,  even  they 
are  often  surprised  at  the  successes  scored  by  him  apart 
from  the  chance,  luck  or  good  fortune  which  contrib- 
ute their  share,  and  in  most  cases  at  least  they  would 
be  stumped  to  formulate  the  explanation  of  his  ex- 
ceeding the  measure  of  success  attained  by  others,  them- 
selves included.  Furthermore,  does  it  happen  with  the 
man  of  business  that  past  successes  warrant  in  less  de- 
gree the  expectation  of  similar  success  with  new  enter- 
prises undertaken  on  larger  lines  or  with  unfamiliar 
conditions  than  in  the  case  of  the  engineer  and  the 
executive  organizer. 

The  need  being  evident,  the  Government  is  able  to 
obtain  good  executive  and  engineering  talent  for  its 
purposes.  It  is  conceivable  that  with  the  necessity, 
the  means  and  singlenes?.  of  purpose  it  might  obtain 
the  best.     As  to  the  more    difficult  proposition  of  ob- 


46     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

taining  good  business  ability,  not  because  of  its  scar- 
city but  because  of  the  greater  difficulty  attending  its 
determination,  the  Government  so  far  has  not  made  a 
beginning. 

At  the  time  of  the  agitation  for  civil  service  reform, 
"running  the  Government  on  business  principles"  was 
a  phrase  constantly  made  use  of.  The  truth  is,  Govern- 
ment business  not  being  "business"  at  all,  it  cannot  be 
run  on  business  principles.  If  departmental  business 
had  been  somebody's  business  instead  of  everybody's 
business,  the  spoils  system  would  never  have  taken 
hold,  or  would  have  been  easily  disposed  of.  And  if  it 
were  to  become  somebody's  business  the  saving  civil 
service  rules  would  at  once  be  found  inadequate,  su- 
perfluous and  a  hindrance. 

If  the  Government  were  to  go  into  business  and 
were  to  put  its  business  affairs  in  the  hands  of  business 
men  subject  to  Governmetal  regulation,  supervision  and 
restrictions,  it  would  be  amazing  to  expect  the  same 
results  as  in  the  case  of  private  business.  If  the  Gov- 
ernment were  to  go  into  business  and  were  to  call  in  the 
ablest  business  men  to  take  charge  of  its  business  with 
absolute  freedom  and  discretion  as  to  the  conduct  of 
the  same  and  as  to  the  business  policy  to  be  pursued 
or  varied  from  time  to  time,  all  for  account  and  risk 
of  whom  it  might  concern,  and  answerable  only  for 
their  personal  honesty,  this  would  be  indeed  a  case  of 
trust  in  both  the  ancient  and  the  modern  sense  of  the 
most  tremendous  and  unparalleled  sort.  It  would  be 
thrusting  reign  by  plutocracy  on  the  plutocrats  with 
all  the  potentialities  of  the  case;  for  the  present  power 
of  the  plutocrats  lies  in  their  power  to  make  use  of  oth- 
er people's  money,  and  with  the  resources  of  the  nation 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     47 

gathered  in  by  the  Government  and  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  its  business  managers  these  might  well  forego 
their  present  gains.  In  other  words,  what  they  might 
suffer  in  opportunities  for  personal  accumulation 
would  be  more  than  made  up  to  them  in  direct  and  ab- 
solute power  and  empire. 

This  much  is  warranted  by  the  experience  of  the 
past.  The  experience  of  the  future  may  be  different, 
but  it  is  not  now  available. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  SOCIALIZATION  OP  INDUSTRY. 

If  industrial  socialism  ever  becomes  the  order  of  the 
State  it  will  come  about  through  settled  conviction  on 
the  part  of  a  clear  working  majority  of  those  exercis- 
ing political  power  that  such  an  order  must  permanent- 
ly improve  and  guarantee  their  industrial  condition 
generally  and  severally.  The  establishment  of  consti- 
tutions and  the  enactment  of  laws  will  be  the  work  of 
representative  assemblies  wherein  will  take  place  the 
needful  adjustments  and  compromises  between  con- 
flicting theories  and  supposed  interests,  after  the  man- 
ner familiar  and  current  in  the  world  of  Democracy. 
As  in  all  previous  formative  periods  men  of  command- 
ing leadership  will  come  to  the  fore  and  will  impress 
their  personality  upon  their  age,  while  their  advocacy 
of  measures  will  powerfully  affect  the  course  of  legis- 
lation on  all  important  matters.  It  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed, therefore,  that  any  preconceived  program  can 
be  accepted  in  advance  as  the  socialistic  order  finally 
to  be  put  in  operation. 

However,  in  the  formative  stage  of  general  opinion 
regarding  the  matter,  when  the  thoughts  of  many  are 
turning  from  the  present  towards  the  future,  both  the 
possibilities  and  the  impossibilities  of  a  future  of  such 
positive  realities  still  take  form  before  the  mind  in 
keeping  with  the  causes,  motives  and  happenings  of  the 
world   of  our  common   experience.     While,   therefore, 

48 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     49 

the  thorough-going  Socialist  may  prefer  to  discard 
every  vestige  of  the  existing  industrial  organization 
and  build  from  his  own  foundations,  the  new  order  is 
more  likely  to  proceed  by  the  line  of  least  resistance. 
The  establishment  of  a  socialized  industrial  common- 
wealth involving  the  least  destruction  in  preparing  and 
availing  of  existing  means  of  operation  would  give 
us  an  industrial  order  based  on  present  commercial 
principles  and  instrumentalities ;  that  is  to  say,  on 
money,  credit,  good  faith  and  scrupulous  regard  for  all 
property  rights;  the  essential  change  consisting  in  the 
fact  that  all  means  of  production  and  sources  of  sup- 
ply are  in  the  hands  of  the  State,  and  are  operated  and 
held  for  the  benefit  of  the  State  as  representing  the  in- 
dividual members  composing  it.  Our  premises  assume 
that  all  these  agencies  of  production  and  distribution 
shall  have  been  acquired  by  the  State  through  condem- 
nation proceedings  and  the  issue  of  its  interest-bearing 
bonds  in  payment  of  the  appraised  value.  The  op- 
eration will,  of  course,  exceed  a  thousand  fold  in  mag- 
nitude and  complexity  all  financial  and  governmental 
adjustments  ever  put  through,  but  that  is  not  declar- 
ing it  impossible  of  accomplishment.  In  any  case,  its 
being  successfully  accomplished  is  precedent  to  the 
inauguration  of  government  ownership  on  the  basis  in- 
dicated. 

Every  man  who  works  deals  in  futures.  He  must 
harvest  his  crop  or  finish  his  locomotive  before  he  can 
make  delivery  and  receive  payment.  He  must  get  into 
a  stout  pair  of  trousers  and  go  about  his  day's  work 
on  the  strength  of  a  good  breakfast  before  he  can 
claim  his  day's  pay.  He  must  have  either  money  or 
credit,  and  money  today  is  mostly  credit  currency.  The 


50  PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

socialized  industrial  State  then  must  be  his  banker, 
and  will  serve  him  well  according  as  its  credit  is  un- 
questioned. 

As  to  the  laborer's  compensation  this  may  be  accord- 
ing to  a  wage  scale  subject  to  frequent  readjustments 
as  the  most  convenient  method  of  apportioning  him  his 
share  of  the  results  of  his  labor,  but  there  will  be  no 
employer.  The  State  will  merely  preside  and  keep 
order  at  the  counter,  labor  exchange  or  employment 
bureau  where  the  collective  and  special  bargaining  is 
conducted  between  the  representatives  of  the  organized 
trades,  guilds  or  unions  become  part  of  the  machinery 
of  government,  for  the  respective  share  in  the  whole 
product  to  be  assigned  to  the  members  thereof,  from 
the  top  to  the  bottom,  including  laborers,  operatives, 
mechanics,  foremen,  superintendents,  engineers,  supply 
and  distributing  agents  and  business  managers ;  money 
being  the  most  convenient  medium  for  all  adjustments. 

Business  is  business  and  business  management  is  es- 
sential for  the  obtaining  of  economic  results,  called 
profits  or  by  any  other  name,  whether  for  account  of 
capitalist,  stockholder  or  cooperative  proprietor.  If 
good  business  results  are  desired  good  business  talent 
must  be  employed.  If  the  best  results  are  desired  the 
best  business  talent  must  be  secured.  You  will  not 
get  better  talent  permanently  than  you  pay  for,  al- 
though you  may  pay  for  better  talent  than  you  get. 
It  is  the  avowed  object  of  socialistic  proposals  to  re- 
duce the  returns  to  the  heads  of  the  business  world 
as  being  excessive.  This  accords  with  the  lament 
heard  now  for  several  generations,  that  the  best  talent 
of  the  country  has  been  attracted  to  commercial,  in- 
dustrial and  financial  pursuits  by  the  largeness  of  the 


PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE  51 

rewards  attainable,  while  political  life  has  been  made 
distasteful  and  repellent  to  the  same  class.  "When  the 
business  career  has  been  circumscribed  and  made  as 
distasteful  and  as  indifferently  rewarded  in  comparison 
as  public  life  there  will  obviously  be  less  push  to  in- 
dustry, although  the  country  generally  may  gain  by  a 
return  of  part  of  its  talent  to  the  career  of  the  states- 
man, which  will  be  warranted  by  the  enlarged  scope 
of  the  activities  of  the  State.  The  best  that  can  be 
hoped  for  the  average  worker  from  the  scheme  there- 
fore is  a  larger  proportion  of  diminished  returns  from 
industry,  which  still  is  only  a  hope. 

But  will  not  men  work  harder,  better  and  more 
cheerfully  when  working  for  themselves,  and  so  pre- 
vent any  slackening  of  the  industrial  pace?  They  will 
not  be  working  for  themselves.  So  long  as  industry 
needs  men  of  superior  skill  and  capacity  and  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  must  compensate 
such  men  more  liberally  than  those  less  skilled  and  in- 
dustrially valuable,  so  long  will  laborers  find  them- 
selves working  for  the  advantage  of  someone  else.  That 
is  to  say,  if  the  rule  of  social  service  is  to  apply  all 
alike  will  be  working  for  the  advantage  of  others,  and 
the  question  of  the  relative  social  value  of  the  service 
rendered  and  of  the  compensation  to  be  accorded  there- 
for will  no  more  vanish  under  one  system  than  under 
another. 

Industry  must  continue  its  present  contribution  to 
the  support  of  the  Government  increased  by  the  great- 
er expense  entailed  by  the  enlarged  functions  of  Gov- 
ernment. The  amount  of  private  property  left  may 
be  large  or  small  in  the  aggregate,  but  will  afford  an 
insufiScient  basis  for  a  revenue  by  taxation  in  any  case. 


52     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

All  taxes  must  come  out  of  somebody's  income  and  the 
final  basis  for  taxation  is  ability  to  pay  taxes.  When 
profits  come  to  an  end,  therefore,  taxes  must  come  out 
of  personal  earnings,  out  of  each  person's  share  in  the 
results  of  industry.  In  like  manner,  whether  directly 
or  indirectly,  each  person's  share  will  be  subject  to  the 
necessary  deduction  to  provide  for  the  interest  on  the 
debt  created  in  acquiring  the  industrial  plants  and 
other  property  from  the  owners.  In  other  words  the 
nationalized  industries  must  be  completely  self-sustain- 
ing. It  will  not  be  possible  to  make  up  deficits  from 
any  source.  The  rights  of  property  are  not  sunerior  to 
the  rights  of  man.  and  what  corresponds  strictly  to 
living  waees  must  be  paid  before  sums  can  be  set  aside 
to  meet  interest.  But  those  who  seek  a  new  social-in- 
dustrial nrdpr  are  seekin'?  something  better  than  mere 
waires.  Their  eyes  behold  the  fruits  of  modern  industry 
ar-d  they  can  by  no  means  ignore  the  potent  causes 
of  the  success  of  modern  industry  and  so  cannot  afford 
to  ignore  credit  public  and  private.  The  breaking  down 
of  public  credit  under  the  new  form  of  business  man- 
agement will  mean  collapse  without  remedy  and  dis- 
astor  for  all. 

With  good  credit  born  of  good  management  and  good 
intent,  the  bond  interest  rate  ought  to  be  low  in  the 
absence  of  any  other  way  of  investing  private  funds, 
which  otherwise  will  continue  to  be  subiect  to  taxa- 
tion. Modern  industry  is  now  the  world's  battlefield. 
Indifference  to  financial  obligations  is  treachery  or 
cowardice,  things  fatal  past  all  hope;  yet  bad  general- 
Bhip.  otherwise  bad  management,  loses  more  battles. 

The  next  important  item  to  provide  for  is  industrial 
expansion,  if  warranted  by   the  outlook.     If  there  are 


PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE  53 

still  funds  to  invest  and  the  public  credit  is  maintained, 
it  may  be  practicable  to  place  bonds  for  the  purpose. 
But  unlimited  expansion  is  good  for  no  one's  credit,  so 
contribution  must  be  made  out  of  earnings  to  a  sinking 
fund  to  meet  the  maturity  of  bonds,  or  direct  to  a  cap- 
ital expansion  account.  The  industrial  expansion,  in- 
cluding commercial  and  agricultural  development, 
which  is  such  a  striking  feature  of  our  era,  comes 
from  the  reinvestment  of  profits  in  expectation  of  fur- 
ther profits.  This  is  the  really  impressive  fact  of  the 
existing  industrial  world  and  not  the  lavish  expendi- 
ture which  excites  the  beholders.  Under  a  system  de- 
vised to  end  or  minimize  returns  on  capital,  who  will 
be  interested  in  supplying  capital  for  additional  work- 
shops? There  will  always  be  people  of  a  saving  dispo- 
sition who  must  invest  their  savings  at  whatever  rate 
may  be  obtainable ;  but  such  a  disposition  comes  far 
short  of  the  spirit  of  enterprise.  There  will  be  not  only 
no  private  enterprise,  there  will  be  no  enterprise  at  all. 
The  only  persons  interested  in  the  extension  of  produc- 
tion will  be  those  out  of  employment,  who  will  be  equal- 
ly out  of  money.  The  majority  being  out  of  employ- 
ment means  trade  stagnation  or  industrial  disorganiza- 
tion, for  which  expansion  is  not  a  remedy ;  but  with  the 
majority  at  work  there  is  no  apparent  prospect  of  bet- 
ter returns  to  them  in  the  establishment  of  additional 
factories  and  appliances,  which  may  lead  to  overpro- 
duction and  decrease  of  earnings  under  the  new  system 
as  under  the  old.  The  Government  can  only  do  what 
the  voters  authorize  it  to  do  and  what  the  workers 
make  it  possible  for  it  to  do.  It  is  one  thing  for  Con- 
gress and  the  Legislatures  to  vote  money  raised  from 
import  duties  or  from  a  taxpaying  minority,  but  when 


54     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

it  comes  to  voting  money  directly  from  the  earnings  of 
a  whole  constituency  there  will  be  a  good  deal  more  cau- 
tion exercised.  And  as  to  new  designs,  inventions  and 
processes,  and  the  practical  application  of  scientific  dis- 
coveries, which  call  for  the  risking  of  fresh  capital,  and 
which  when  successful  send  whole  installations  to  the 
scrap  heap  and  wipe  out  hitherto  paying  investments, 
besides  depriving  workmen  who  have  learned  a  particu- 
lar trade  of  their  accustomed  occupations,  such  things 
will  of  course  be  taboo. 

Innovations  are  taken  up  by  the  venturesome  few, 
and  in  proportion  as  the  working  of  the  national  or- 
ganization proves  generally  satisfactory,  and  in  pro- 
portion as  the  responsibility  of  the  representative  to 
the  members  of  his  constituency  is  effective,  will  conser- 
vatism prevail  over  recklessness,  experimental  projects 
and  original  enterprises  alike.  Any  private  under- 
taking would  be  in  competition  with  the  State,  and 
therefore  could  not  be  allowed. 

As  in  these  respects  so  with  regard  to  old  age  pen- 
sions, provision  for  the  incapacitated  and  the  unfor- 
tunate, for  hospitals,  libraries,  art  galleries,  etc.,  pri- 
vate benevolence  being  practically  at  an  end.  The  pres- 
sure on  public  authority  alike  from  the  constitutionally 
improvident  and  from  those  who  prefer  to  make  their 
own  provision  for  the  future  will  be  in  the  direction  of 
affording  the  highest  possible  direct  and  immediate  re- 
turns to  the  mass  of  the  workers  of  the  results  of  their 
productive  activity. 

Thus  we  have  the  socialized  industrial  common- 
wealth. It  would  doubtless  mean  the  end  of  plutocracy, 
but  by  no  means  the  end  of  poverty  nor  of  social  ine- 
quality. It  would  set  limitations  to  individualism  with- 
out ending  it. 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     55 

Socialism  is  something  else.  Socialism  is  a  thin':? 
projected  from  the  dissatisfactions,  the  deprivations 
and  the  failures  of  the  past  and  not  from  the  successes 
and  the  progress  of  the  past.  For  a  more  positive  basis 
a  human  nature  must  be  supposed  divested  of  both 
the  weakness  and  the  strength  which  have  marked  its 
achievements  up  to  the  present  time.  Confidence  is  in 
fact  asked  in  a  proposition  wanting  in  the  principle 
of  continuity  and  at  variance  with  the  process  of  suc- 
cessive steps  in  the  course  of  human  experience. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  ROOT  OF  ALL  EVIL. 

It  is  not  money,  but  the  love  of  money,  which  is  the 
root  of  all  evil,  a  statement  to  be  taken  comprehensively 
as  including  love  of  the  things  that  money  will  buy 
and  of  the  things  which  the  possession  of  money  pro- 
cures, which  again  are  not  themselves  evil,  but  which 
easily  become  the  fruitful  sources  of  evil.  Again,  as 
the  romantic  lover  loves  his  love  and  distinguishes  not, 
and  as  the  experienced  ones  hold  the  bewitching  damsel 
measurably  responsible  for  her  adorer's  state  of  mind, 
so  a  similar  mutuality  arises  between  money  and  the 
love  of  it. 

The  Scriptures  were  written  to  teach  us  wisdom  and 
not  to  inform  us  specifically  whether  money  apart  from 
the  love  of  it  is  evil  or  good.  It  ought  not  to  take  a 
large  measure  of  wisdom,  however,  to  conclude  that  if 
money  is  a  power  in  the  hands  of  men  moral  possibili- 
ties must  attach  to  it. 

It  appears  that  those  who  object  to  private  fortunes 
find  this  power  of  money  a  thing  so  essentially  evil  that 
they  would  abolish  money  itself  in  order  to  free  the 
world  of  that  which  by  no  means  can  be  reformed.  The 
multi-millionaire  is  not  rich  and  powerful  because  he 
possesses  unlimited  cash,  but  because  he  has  in  abund- 
ance that  which  can  be  turned  into  cash,  which  affords 
him  ample  credit.  Money  and  the  ability  to  pay  money, 
liquid  assets  and  the  reputation  of  the  owner  are  the 

56 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     57 

bases  of  commercial  credit,  which  is  an  extension  of 
the  power  of  money  and  the  force  which  moves  the  busi- 
ness world  today. 

Destroy  money  and  you  destroy  credit.  The  rich  man 
remains  with  all  that  money  can  buy  whereas  com- 
merce is  reduced  to  barter,  in  which  form  it  is  certain 
to  continue.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  commerce,  trade 
and  exchange  are  the  evil  thinc^s  to  be  utterly  done 
away  with  they  must  be  strangled  by  some  other  means, 
whereupon  gold  and  silver  money  will  be  of  little  more 
consequence  than  wampum.  Plowever,  as  an  undoubt- 
edly practical  way  of  bringing  down  two  birds  of  prey 
with  one  stone,  the  rich  man  and  the  means  whereby 
he  is  enriched,  the  abolition  of  money  is  clearly  to  be 
commended.  The  killing  can  then  be  attended  to  at 
leisure  if  thought  necessary. 

For  a  blessing  of  this  magnitude  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity will  surely  be  more  than  content  to  forego  the 
uses  of  money  and  accommodate  itself  to  store  orders 
in  place  thereof.  As  to  store  orders  being  better  than 
money  for  any  purpose  whatever,  the  cheap  money  ar- 
gument is  out  of  date,  and  Don  Quixote's  first  bill  of 
ass  colts  (second  unpaid)  was  never  held  a  valuable 
suggestion. 

But  and  if  everything  to  be  bought  is  supplied  by  one 
storekeeper,  and  if  everything  supplied  is  to  go  only 
to  those  who  labor  and  render  social  service,  store  or- 
ders will  suffice  for  such  limited  transactions,  will  be 
in  fact  a  sort  of  money.  Will  be  money  of  a  sort,  cheap 
money,  which  having  no  intrinsic  value,  will  yet  pos- 
sess an  exchange  value,  while  the  left  over  things  and 
remnants  in  the  public  store  have  any  value  or  are 
worth  buying.    In  other  words,  even  accumulated  store 


58  PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

orders  on  the  house  that  Jack  bnilt  will  possess  a  prop- 
erty value  proportioned  to  the  amount  and  quality  of 
its  merchantable  contents,  and  with  the  abuses  of  ac- 
cumulated money  limited  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
limiting  its  uses,  the  crime  of  property  will  still  sur- 
vive. 

In  order  that  store  orders  shall  escape  becoming  cur- 
rency they  must  be  non-transferable.  In  order  not  to 
become  property  they  must  be  good  for  this  day  only, 
or  at  least  be  good  only  for  a  week  or  a  month.  To  pre- 
vent hoarding  of  the  necessaries  of  life  they  must  be 
exchangeable  in  a  fixed  proportion  for  food,  clothing 
and  general  articles  or  objects.  In  order  that  the  most 
needy  shall  be  supplied  first  store  orders  must  be  hon- 
ored from  the  most  recent  date  backward,  back  orders 
being  given  the  status  of  deferred  orders,  only  good 
after  the  newer  ones  are  filled.  Thus,  and  thus  only, 
can  security  be  had  against  the  evil  of  personal  accu- 
mulations. Then  with  money  dead  credit  will  be 
deader. 

The  reason  for  ending  money  by  whatever  means  and 
substituting  something  or  nothing,  is  essentially  a  re- 
pressive reason.  The  system  of  which  such  a  proposi- 
tion is  the  centre,  whatever  its  objects  and  intentions 
and  whatever  the  evils  it  aims  to  correct,  is  essentially 
a  repressive  system.  Laws  are  largely  repressive;  in- 
stitutions may  be  repressive  or  the  reverse.  The  en- 
thusiasm and  earnestness  of  those  who  adopt  a  system 
cannot  be  shared  by  all  upon  whom  that  system  is  im- 
posed, and  in  any  case  cannot  insure  success.  It  is 
not  enthusiasm  for  freedom  which  has  made  a  success 
of  free  institutions.  This  enthusiasm  is  as  much  re- 
sponsible for  the  defects  of  popular  freedom  as  for  its 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  59 

virtues.  The  success  of  free  institutions  results  essen- 
tially from  the  free  scope  and  incentive  afforded  to  the 
individual,  including  freedom  of  association  for  com- 
mon ends. 

As  already  pointed  out,  after  the  suppression  of 
trade  as  anti-social  men  will  continue  to  barter  (a 
practice  wherein  the  knowing  and  the  astute  have  the 
advantage  over  the  uninformed  and  the  inexpert)  until 
absolutely  rigorous  means  are  put  in  force  to  stamp  out 
all  contraband  and  clandestine  exchanges.  So  long  as 
the  issuing  of  personal  supplies,  necessities  and  trin- 
kets cannot  be  avoided,  a  thorough-going  system  of  pub- 
lic inspection  and  accounting  must  be  kept  up  to  pre- 
vent the  weakly  and  the  heedless  from  letting  go  pos- 
sessed necessities  in  acquiring  more  unsubstantial  de- 
lights from  enterprising  contraband  traders.  There 
will  be  a  revival  of  interest  in  smugglers'  caves  and  an 
enlarged  comprehension  of  the  local  significance  of 
"moonshine." 

Turning  to  the  collateral  effects  to  be  anticipated, 
why  should  the  repression  of  the  individual  for  the 
good  of  society  promote  brotherhood  among  men? 
Men's  relations,  dealings  and  interdependencies  are  to 
be  less  personal  and  more  collective.  Involuntary  asso- 
ciation is  to  take  the  place  of  the  associations  of  choice. 

Do  masses  of  men  find  now  that  back  of  the  superin- 
tendent, the  manager,  the  president  with  whom  they 
must  deal,  there  is  an  impersonal  power  which  they  can- 
not reach?  The  reality  is  the  notorious  fact  that  there 
is  most  frequently  a  dominating  personality  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  modern  corporation.  The  nearer  one  gets 
to  the  governing  centre  the  more  personal  is  the  control 
found  to  be.    But  with  the  abolition  of  personal  direc- 


60  PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE 

tion  of  affairs  under  the  socialized  order  of  things  di- 
rection and  control  must  be  impersonal  and  personally 
ind'fferent  in  direct  proportion  as  the  theory  is  carried 
into  effect.  The  concerns  of  the  average  man  will  thus 
be  not  with  his  fellow,  but  with  the  State,  a  mechan- 
ism so  vast  and  complex  with  the  expansion  of  its  func- 
tions that  all  sense  of  contributing  to  his  own  destiny 
through  any  influence  which  it  will  be  possible  for  him 
to  exert  on  the  direction  of  public  affairs  will  utterly 
disappear. 

Rather  than  a  sense  of  brotherhood  it  will  be  the 
spirit  of  fatalism  which  will  take  possession  of  the  uni- 
versal consciousness.  Hope  will  cease  to  spring  eternal 
in  the  human  breast. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

SOCIALISM  IN   RELATION  TO  CHRISTIANITY  AND  DEMOCRACY. 

Was  Jesus  Christ  a  Socialist?  The  questicn  reminds 
one  of  the  discussion  of  fifty  years  ago  as  to  whether 
the  New  Testament  recognized  slavery.  The  slavery 
question  was  settled  without  reference  to  the  New  Tes- 
tament, and  in  the  reorganization  of  society  greater 
heed  thereunto  is  not  likely  to  be  given.  Not  a  Socialist, 
but  a  Communist,  will  be  the  conclusion  if  certain 
striking  sentences  recorded  in  the  gospels  be  taken  with- 
out qualification  and  as  conclusive. 

"Who  made  me  a  judge  or  a  dvider  among  you?" 
The  disclaimer  holds  against  making  Christianity  a 
party  to  a  question  not  religious  nor  ethical,  and  whose 
good  humanitarian  intentions  are  not  the  point  of  the 
contention. 

Christ  fed  the  multitudes,  not  because  they  were 
poor,  but  because  an  unusual  situation  brought  about 
by  the  novelty  of  His  mode  of  preaching  made  this 
necessary.  The  sender  of  the  rain  on  the  just  and  on 
the  unjust  fed  the  hungry  of  these  open-air  meetings 
without  discrimination  and  without  humiliation  for 
any,  yet  the  time  came  around  for  telling  them  plainly 
that  to  follow  Him  for  the  sake  of  unearned  victuals 
was  not  at  all  to  their  credit.  To  the  rich,  then.  He 
preached  the  gospel  of  giving  and  of  self-sacrifice,  and 
to  the  multitudes  He  preached.  Seek  ye  first  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  His  righteousness  and  all  these  things 

61 


62    PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

shall  be  added  unto  you ;  and  to  all  alike,  that  which 
was  the  necessary  complement  of  the  same  gospel,  Love 
your  enemies  and  do  good  to  them  that  despitefully 
use  you.  These  teachings  are  social  in  their  effect 
rather  than  socialistic  in  their  intention. 

"What  He  said  concerning  wealth  and  its  possessors 
was  emphatic,  and  certainly  was  not  intended  to  be 
otherwise.  A  camel  cannot  go  through  the  eye  of  a 
needle.  Neither  can  a  mosquito.  If,  however,  it  were 
said  that  it  is  easier  for  a  mosquito  to  go  through  the 
eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  no  one  would  be  impressed,  while  some 
would  be  misled  into  supposing  that  the  statement  of  a 
fact  were  intended.  But  the  camel  and  the  needle's  eye 
involve  a  degree  of  exaggeration  which  cannot  be  mis- 
taken for  anything  else,  the  only  legitimate  use  of  ex- 
aggeration being  to  convey  emphasis.  Hence  that  it  is 
easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle 
than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  God  ex- 
pressed what  Jesus  wished  to  say,  whereas  that  a  rich 
man  can  no  more  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  than  a 
mosquito  can  fly  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  does  not 
express  what  He  wished  to  say.  but  expresses  some  peo- 
ple's understanding  of  what  He  wished  to  say. 

The  astonished  query  of  the  disciples,  Who,  then,  can 
be  saved?  reveals  the  attitude  of  the  common  mind  at 
that  period.  If  the  attitude  of  the  common  mind  had 
been  that  riches  were  clear  evidence  of  the  rascality  of 
the  possessor,  Christ's  attitude  would  have  been  the 
same,  but  His  utterances  would  as  surely  have  been 
different. 

Was  there  and  is  there  necessity  for  such  emphasis? 
Has  it,  or  has  it  not,  been  a  common  thing  for  men  to 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  63 

sink  every  ennoblinj:?  quality  and  even  every  instinct  of 
humanity  in  the  pursuit  of  gain?  Consider  also  that  if 
there  is  a  quarter  of  the  globe  where  wealth  is  synony- 
mous for  sordidncss  and  heartlessness  it  is  the  Gorgeous 
East.  Also  that  the  possession  of  wealth  affords  dan- 
gerous opportunities  for  self-indulgence,  contributes  to 
a  man's  self-complacency  and  tends  to  become  a  sopo- 
rific as  regards  intellectual  and  ethical  interests.  These 
being  the  facts,  Christ's  words  fit  the  facts  wherever 
and  whenever  they  exist.  But  they  are  not  all  the 
facts,  and  the  question  of  whether  the  possession  of 
riches  is  incompatible  with  nobility  of  character  is  an- 
swered by  facts  of  which  Christ's  words  do  not  consti- 
tute a  denial. 

]\rilitant  Socialism  does  not  make  much  account  of 
Christianity.  The  reasons  are  not  far  to  seek.  For  one 
thing  religion  easily  becomes  a  conservative  factor  in 
society  even  without  state  establishment.  But  there 
is  another  weighty  factor.  The  Christian  religion  by 
inculcating  fidelity,  diligence  and  self-control  brings 
the  degree  of  prosperity  commensurate  to  these  quali- 
ties to  a  large  proportion  of  its  adherents,  or  links 
them  as  dependable  material  with  the  general  pros- 
perity of  the  community.  Property  conservatism 
therefore  is  largely  developed  among  them  as  a  con- 
sequence, quite  apart  from  any  theory  regarding  prop- 
erty to  be  attributed  to  the  teachings  they  aim  to  fol- 
low. The  faithful  steward  of  the  mammon  of  unright- 
eousness professing  godliness  has  of  old  time  been 
twitted  for  inconsistency  in  not  preferring  present 
poverty  while  reading  his  title  clear  to  mansions  in 
the  skies,  and  now  he  must  faoe  the  additional  reproach 
of  blocking  the  millennium.     Too  good  for  this  world, 


64     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

because  too  good  for  the  good  of  the  cause,  which  re- 
quires not  salt  but  pepper. 

If  Socialism  is  ever  to  be  tried,  inasmuch  as  its  car- 
rying out  will  depend  more  on  loyalty  than  on  the 
force  of  law,  Christianity  will  be  an  even  greater  ne- 
cessity than  under  the  present  social  order. 

On  the  opposite  side  from  religion  the  question  of 
changing  the  present  basis  of  society  overlaps  that  of 
the  existing  Democracy,  which  is  the  unfinished  busi- 
ness before  the  American  people.  In  the  field  it  covers 
Democracy  has  accomplished  much ;  it  has  not  accom- 
plished everything.  It  is  not  capable  of  accomplishing 
all  that  we  desire;  it  is  capable  of  accomplishing 
much  more  than  has  been  accomplished.  In  so  far  as 
Socialism  may  mean  the  continuance  or  the  extension 
of  Democracy  the  failings  of  Democracy  must  be  the 
failings  of  Socialism,  plus. 

The  average  law-maker  or  the  average  public  execu- 
tive as  compared  with  the  business  man  of  equal  rep- 
resentative character,  is  inferior  in  capacity,  in  thor- 
oughness, in  character  and  in  foresight,  and  in  conse- 
quence is  not  a  match  for  him.  I  include  character. 
Take  the  matter  of  the  bribery  direct  and  indirect  of 
those  charged  with  public  responsil)ilities,  which  has 
been  a  feature  of  our  industrial  development.  Is  not 
the  bribe-giver  as  guilty  as  the  bribe-taker?  In  mor- 
als, yes.  But  in  current  business  ethics  the  sin  for 
which  repentance  will  not  avail  is  that  of  selling  out 
one's  partner  or  one's  principal.  The  bribe-taker 
therefore  is  on  equal  terms  of  suppressed  distinction 
with  his  fellow  on  the  score  of  bribery,  and  in  addition 
is  guilty  of  treachery  and  betrayal  of  trust  towards 
his  principal,  the   public    whose  interests  he  betrays. 


PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE  65 

The  weight  of  contempt  falls  on  the  bribed,  while  hu- 
miliation only  is  the  portion  of  those  who  submit  to 
blackmail. 

In  the  matter  of  public  appointments  under  Democ- 
racy the  question  presents  itself:  Is  the  candidate  suf- 
ficiently competent  not  to  bring  discredit  upon  the  ap- 
pointing power?  In  private  business  the  question  is 
asked :  Is  this  the  best  man  we  can  find  to  promote  our 
interests?  The  difference  between  the  two  methods  of 
making  choice  is  the  difference  between  dividends  and 
a  receivership  in  the  case  of  the  business  corporation, 
and  in  the  case  of  the  public  corporation  it  is  the  dif- 
ference between  government  for  the  people  and  gov- 
ernment for  the  benefit  of  a  coterie. 

The  good  corporation  manager  is  good  because  he 
looks  first  to  the  good  of  the  corporation  that  he  man- 
ages, that  is,  to  the  good  of  the  stockholders  therein. 
The  bad  corporation  manager  is  bad  because  he  looks 
rather  to  his  own  personal  profit  and  uses  the  corpora- 
tion which  he  directs  for  the  personal  ends  of  those  in 
control.  It  is  incumhont  on  both  to  keep  the  law.  It 
is  incumbent  on  neither  to  expend  his  energies  first  and 
principally  for  the  common  weal,  and  in  the  second 
place  only  for  the  weal  of  his  stockholders.  In  the 
business  world  a  man  is  not  asked  to  represent  two  in- 
terests which  may  be  conflicting.  Owing  their  promi- 
nence to  business  success  and  not  to  any  gift  or  train- 
ing in  statesmanship,  the  managers  of  large  business 
interests  are  not  always  the  best  judges  of  public  policy. 

The  foregoing  implies  and  sufficiently  explains  a 
one-sided  development  of  the  industrial  common- 
wealth. By  what  means  is  improvement  to  be  brought 
about?    The  material  rewards  of  public  life  never  can 


66     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

equal  those  of  a  successful  business  career.  But  men 
are  still  moved  by  ambition,  and  in  proportion  as  pub- 
lic office,  which  cannot  bestow  honor  upon  mediocrity, 
shall  afford  opportunity  for  a  distinguished  career  will 
it  attract  men  of  the  right  metal. 

Is  it  true  that  first-rate  ability  is  not  recognized  and 
appreciated  by  democratic  constituencies?  According 
to  the  composition  of  the  electorate  in  given  localities 
this  doubtless  is  the  case;  but  on  an  extended  scale 
where  extremes  of  one  sort  are  compensated  in  other 
directions  there  is  abundant  recognition  of  public  serv- 
ice of  high  quality.  Of  course,  it  is  to  be  fully  recog- 
nized that  there  are  serious  obstacles  to  be  dealt  with 
both  on  the  side  of  the  voting  public  and  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  person  entering  the  political  field; 
but  other  pathways  in  life  lead  up  hill,  too.  It  is  equal- 
ly true  that  other  qualifications  must  be  possessed  be- 
sides the  strict  qualifications  for  statesmanship;  but 
after  all  other  qualities  and  qualifications  are  found 
needful  besides  strictly  professional  ones,  for  success 
in  the  professions,  and  personality  counts  enormously 
in  a  successful  business  career. 

Under  the  existing  systems  of  party  organization 
electoral  campaigns  are  mainly  won  by  virtue  of  "the 
head  of  the  ticket";  to  wit,  the  candidate  heading  the 
ticket  is  nominated  to  insure  success.  The  will  of  the 
people  is  therefore  approximately  made  effective  in 
placing  him  in  the  executive  chair,  while  those  dragged 
into  office  in  his  wake  are  looked  upon  with  relative 
indifference  by  the  voters.  Theoretically  or  actually 
representative  they  are  scarcely  held  as  representing 
them  by  the  mass  of  their  constituents,  and  are  actually 
looked  upon  askance  by  the  constituents  of  their  fellow 


PROGRESS  FROM   EXPERIENCE  67 

members  in  the  legislative  body,  which  commands  di- 
minished confidence  and  credit  in  consequence.  Thus 
the  constitutional  balance  of  powers  is  disturbed  tem- 
porarily at  least.  In  the  long  run,  however,  such  uneven 
working  under  the  constitutions,  state  and  national, 
finds  its  own  corrective.  "What  most  needs  to  be  em- 
phasized, however,  is  the  manifest  fact  that  greater  ca- 
pacity for  practical  affairs,  with  independence  and  hon- 
esty of  purpose,  must  qualify  the  administrators  of 
government  before  the  much-needed  equilibrium  be- 
tween the  public  and  private  conduct  of  affairs  can  pos- 
sibly be  realized. 

This  is  the  chaff,  the  grain,  the  sticks  and  straw  "and 
small  dust  of  the  floor"  which  Democracy  is  engaged 
in  threshing  out,  for  which  purpose  Democracy  is  a 
better  threshing-machine  than  Socialism,  because  sim- 
pler and  not  designed  to  do  so  many  things  at  once. 
To  pile  up  the  tale  of  its  required  performance  would 
be  to  overload  it  for  carrying  on  its  present  tasks  and 
render  it  unfit  for  the  assuming  of  new  ones. 


CHAPTER   X. 

CURRENT   SOCIAL  TENDENCIES. 

As  the  interweaving  and  extending  of  the  network 
of  modern  industry  goes  on  the  inter-relation  and  in- 
ter-dependence of  men,  groups  of  men,  associations  of 
men,  classes  of  men,  becomes  more  and  more  an  evident 
fact.  The  solidarity  of  the  race  becomes  a  phrase  with 
meaning.  The  brotherhood  of  man  sounds  better  and 
carries  a  meaning  at  once  deeper  and  more  kindling, 
all  the  while  that  it  remains  a  hope  of  the  future  and 
therefore  a  present  unreality.  Sentiments  are  things  to 
be  reckoned  with,  but  in  solidarity  we  have  a  princi- 
ple operative  in  the  affairs  of  men  and  something  which 
is  pushed  forward  and  made  real  by  the  main  currents 
of  the  industrial  world. 

The  peddler  and  the  huckster  try  to  make  all  they 
can  out  of  each  particular  customer.  The  director  of 
large  undertakings,  possibly  not  more  honest  and  a 
shrewder  schemer,  must  concern  himself  with  consum- 
ing markets  and  with  the  purchasing  power  of  com- 
munities and  States,  purchasing  power  which  is  pro- 
portionate to  the  productiveness,  well-being  intelli- 
gence and  progreesiveness  of  such  communities  and 
States. 

A  financial  panic  is  a  tremendous  demonstration  of 
the  solidarity  of  industrial  communities  and  classes,  and 
the  extreme  bitterness  with  which  the  responsible  au- 
thors are  sought  and  pointed  out  emphasizes  the  reali- 

68 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     69 

zation  that  the  breaking  down  of  prosperity  is  a  social 
failure,  due  to  the  weakness  and  recklessness,  the  in- 
competence or  the  falseness,  of  important  members  of 
the  social  structure  in  which  all  are  included. 

Solidarity  is  not  a  substitute  for  brotherhood,  but  a 
practical  means  of  bringing  it  within  reach.  Within 
reach  of  whom?  Not  within  our  reach,  nor  within  reach 
of  our  children.  Then  we  want  something  quicker  in 
its  action,  something  which  we  can  at  least  directly 
bring  nbout  for  our  children  if  not  for  ourselves.  The 
marvelous  accomplishments  of  machinery,  invention 
and  organization  have  set  the  pace  for  our  thinking, 
and  we  think  to  bring  about  our  desires  and  arrive  at 
our  ends  by  similar  made-to-order  processes.  It  derives 
from  the  same  mental  attitude  which  supposes  that  ma- 
terial and  industrial  progress  renders  culture,  religion 
and  ethics  superfluous  to  come  to  the  quick  conclusion 
that  social  engineering  and  devising  can  successfully 
pull  down  and  reconstruct  without  regard  to  the  slower 
evolutions  of  which  present-day  human  society  is  the 
outcome.  Alike  in  times  of  unconscious  preparation, 
in  times  of  ineffectual  unrest,  and  in  the  social  brew- 
ing and  chalk-marking  of  the  age  of  industrial  pre- 
occupation, the  mills  of  God  grind  slowly. 

Then  does  fatalism  again  confront  us?  The  lessons 
of  the  past  are  luminous.  Out  of  the  tremendous  im- 
pulses of  the  ages  which  terminated  and  succeeded  the 
middle  ages  good  and  lasting  fruits  have  surely  come: 
out  of  the  very  midst  of  confusions  and  misdirected 
movements  which  no  one  would  wish  to  see  repeated. 
The  impulses  of  present-day  humanity  will  doubtless 
bear  fruits  both  sweet  and  bitter,  but  our  children's 
children  will  have  the  power  of  choice  as  we  have  and 


70  PROGRESS   FROM    EXPERIENCE 

exercise  the  power  of  choice  of  that  which  is  set  before 
us  of  earlier  harvests  and  vintages.  And  so  each  gen- 
eration must  bring  its  grist  to  the  slow  grinding  mill, 
be  our  confidence  what  it  may. 

While  the  rich  are  growing  richer  and  the  poor  are 
growing  poorer  the  middle  classes  are  between  the  up- 
per and  the  nether  millstone,  and  are  being  cracked, 
rolled,  ground,  hulled,  polished,  anything  you  please 
except  eliminated.  Considering  the  exacting  conditions 
of  their  existence  and  that  they  are  not  favored  or  pro- 
tected by  combinations,  exemptions  or  legal  enactments 
of  any  sort,  the  most  distinctive  fact  concerning  them  is 
assuredly  their  persistence.  If  the  birthrate  among 
them  is  low  the  death  rate  is  correspondingly  low, 
while  they  are  constantly  recruited  from  the  lower 
ranks  by  the  energetic  and  industrious  who  rise,  and 
from  the  upper  circles,  not  by  the  victims  of  degeneracy, 
who  are  not  landed  half  way  down  the  descent,  but 
by  those  of  diminished  fortune  resulting  from  financial 
reverses  or  from  the  subdivision  of  estates.  And  so 
these  same  striving,  studying,  contriving  and  arriving 
multiples  of  their  respective  sorts,  half  way  successful 
and  three-quarters  prosperous  by  any  standard  other 
than  their  own,  without  encouragement  or  invitation, 
not  only  continue  to  exist,  but  unaided  by  great  fer- 
tility multiply  and  replenish  the  suburbs.  The  vast 
accumulations  and  the  concentrated  industrial  control 
in  the  hands  of  the  few  constitute  the  most  striking 
feature  of  the  present  era;  but  even  more  character- 
istic if  less  spectacular  is  the  rise  in  the  standard  of  liv- 
ing and  the  ability  of  vast  and  rapidly  increasing  mul- 
titudes to  meet  the  increased  requirements,  in  an  un- 
broken series  from  those  whose  lives  are  indeed  a  strug- 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     71 

gle  up  to  and  including  the  uncounted  and  unlisted 
rich,  who  are  not  rich  enough  to  be  in  the  public  eye 
twenty  miles  from  their  country  places  scattered  over 
the  land  in  all  manner  of  unexpected  and  unfashion- 
able localities. 

Those  of  medium  condition,  antecedents  and  attain- 
ments, whether  termed  the  middle  classes  or  the  bour- 
geoisie, are  taxed  in  France  with  selfishness  and  lack 
of  generous  ideals,  in  England  with  commonplace  if  not 
vulgarized  standards,  and  in  America  with  social  pre- 
tentiousness and  all  uncharitable  pettiness,  with  a  per 
contra  for  middle-class  virtues  which  is  as  often  scorned 
as  gratefully  accepted.  The  average  person  being  born 
to  mediocrity,  the  following  may  appear  relevant  to 
the  matter  in  hand: 

"He  that  is  down  need  fear  no  fall."  Those  at  the 
bottom  of  the  ladder  either  have  little  ambition  or  their 
ambition  is  in  the  direction  of  material  success,  which 
they  not  infrequently  achieve.  In  other  lands  persons 
of  such  origin  may  have  an  artistic  gift  and  tempera-  ■ 
ment,  but  not  in  Anglo-Saxondom.  Those  upon  the 
ladder  find  it  uncomfortable  to  sit  down.  They  look 
down  with  shrinking  and  above  them  with  envy,  long- 
ing or  determination.  Their  inherited  means  are  in- 
sufficient to  the  undertaking  of  any  considerable  en- 
terprise requiring  capital;  more  often  they  have  none. 
Self-development  is  the  law  of  their  existence  and  it 
would  be  strange  if  the  intellectual  careers  and  the 
intellectual  progress  of  the  nation  were  not  essentially 
of  this  origin.  At  the  same  time  they  contribute  their 
full  share  to  the  material  prosperity  of  the  community. 
While  distinotion  and  eminence  are  attained  by  the 
few  the  raising  of  the  general  standard  is  not  only  de- 


72  PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

sirable  from  every  point  of  view,  but  in  especial  con- 
tributes to  the  creating  of  a  stimulating  environment 
in  place  of  one  which  is  depressing,  that  is  of  great  ac- 
count to  the  developing  possibilities  of  those  who  later 
must  be  looked  to  for  intellectual  guidance  and  leader- 
ship. 

Culture  is  of  slower  growth  and  requires  heredity  for 
its  perfecting;  nevertheless  hereditary  culture  presup- 
poses ancestors  in  whom  this  cherished  grace,  however 
valued,  was  incidental  to  far  more  positive  aims.  The 
advantage  of  a  leisure  class  is  that  general  culture  may 
be  promoted  rather  than  that  which  is  the  accompani- 
ment or  the  by-product  of  concentration  in  a  definite 
pursuit.  And  yet  there  is  something  wanting  in  cul- 
ture which  is  its  own  end,  still  more  in  that  which  must 
adorn  or  be  the  justification  of  living  not  in  itself  of  a 
nature  to  win  commendation. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  as  a  social  factor  at  least, 
the  possessor  of  a  fortune  is  hardly  separable  from  his 
possession.  That  is  to  say,  any  scheme  of  life  which 
leaves  his  fortune  out  of  account  must  partake  more  or 
less  of  the  nature  of  a  fad  rather  than  of  a  veritable  life 
pursuit,  except  in  the  rarest  cases.  As  social  factors  rich 
men  are  part  of  the  natural  order,  and  are  to  be  regard- 
ed as  special  phenomena  about  as  much  as  rivers  which 
may  turn  mills  or  flood  villages,  or  as  gunpowder  which 
would  be  good  for  nothing  if  it  could  not  blow  up. 

Are  the  poor  growing  poorer?  Under  the  increasing 
competition  between  individuals,  nations  and  classes, 
resulting  in  more  exacting  requirements  in  all  direc- 
tions, the  difficulty  of  gaining  a  livelihood  presses 
harder  and  harder  on  the  poorly  equipped,  while  cre- 
ating new  opportunities  for  the  well  equipped  all  along 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     73 

the  line.  The  hopelessly  poor  are  getting  more  hope- 
less ;  the  chronically  poor  are  getting  more  chronic ;  the 
riffraff  of  great  cities  is  increased  in  its  total.  It  is  not 
shown,  however,  that  the  numbers  of  the  poverty- 
stricken  are  increasing  in  proportion  to  the  whole  popu- 
lation. If  men  are  going  down  in  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence it  is  equally  apparent  that  others  are  bettering 
their  condition  and  raising  themselves  in  the  scale  of 
being.  While  humanity  continues  to  be  human  the 
problem  of  poverty  will  continue  to  be  a  problem.  Ef- 
forts to  solve  the  problem  are  in  order,  but  proposed 
solutions  must  be  judged  in  the  light  of  experience  as 
to  the  consequences  to  be  anticipated,  and  not  by  the 
hopes,  good  intentions  or  ingenuity  of  those  who  would 
remodel  all  human  society  with  the  prime  object  of 
remedying  one  phase  of  it. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

RELIGION   AND  PROGRESS. 

Science  as  now  understood  and  the  modern  develop- 
ment of  industry  are  the  young  giants  of  the  present 
scheme.  Or,  measured  in  world  history,  their  majority 
is  less  that  of  years  than  of  precocity  and  stimulus. 
For  the  old  things  of  human  history  and  experience 
which  yet  possess  vitality  we  turn  to  art  and  religion. 

The  science  of  war  is  another  old  thing,  but  like  vol- 
canic energy  in  the  cosmos,  in  spite  of  the  most  terrible 
outbursts  war  is  admittedly  a  diminishing  factor  in  the 
destiny  of  nations. 

In  the  elder  manifestations  of  man's  spirit  as  in  the 
younger  the  sequential  relation  of  progress  to  experience 
is  apparent,  whatever  complexities  and  vicissitudes  may 
have  intervened  to  prevent  an  unbroken  advance.  Art 
and  religion  as  elements  of  civilization  have  been  asso- 
ciated both  with  its  advance  and  its  retrogression.  First 
religion  is  found  leading  civilization,  then  civilization  is 
found  leading  religion.  The  arts  constituted  a  strik- 
ing manfestation  of  the  earliest  civilizations,  declining 
with  the  fall  or  the  decadence  of  the  nations  of  their 
origin.  The  religion  of  the  Nazarene  Christianized  the 
declining  Roman  Empire,  but  hardly  strengthened  it 
to  withstand  overthrow  by  the  victorious  barbarian 
hosts.  It  was  again  successful  in  Christianizing  the 
barbarians;  more  successful  in  Christianizing  them 
than  in  the  slower  process  of  civilizing  them.     Itself 

74 


PROGRESS   FROM    EXPERIENCE  75 

the  conservator  of  civilization,  the  Church  could  not 
wholly  escape  the  conquering  barbarism  of  the  period. 
Not  having  an  hereditary  priesthood  it  was  dependent 
for  its  existence  on  the  material  supplied  by  the  pre- 
vailing civilization,  which  presented  the  case  of  succes- 
sive generations  of  men  engaged  in  conscious  and  in  un- 
conscious struggle  with  an  environment  in  which  par- 
tial victory,  although  a  great  victory  given  the  condi- 
tions, could  only  mean  partial  yielding  on  their  part  for 
themselves  and  for  their  descendants.  Under  the  recip- 
rocal effects  of  the  contending  influences  the  barbarians 
were  both  Christianized  and  raised  in  the  scale  of  civi- 
lization, while  Christianity  failed  to  maintain  its  earlier 
standards. 

As  the  crude  and  sluggish  civilization  of  the  middle 
ages  gained  in  stability,  art,  Gothic  art,  became  the  her- 
ald of  a  new  dawn.  Step  by  step  intellectual  activity 
manifested  itself  in  the  revival  of  art,  wherein  the 
value  of  the  ancient  models  was  presently  recognized; 
in  renewed  interest  in  learning,  which  meant,  first  of 
all,  acquiring  the  learning  of  more  fruitful  ages  than 
those  immediately  preceding ;  and  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
sciences  as  developed,  more  particularly  the  sciences  of 
astronomy  and  navigation.  These  things  generally  met 
with  ecclesiastical  encouragement  in  greater  or  lesser 
degree,  notable  exceptions  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing. But  so  far  from  being  the  leader  in  the  gen- 
eral movement,  whether  as  represented  by  the  Church 
or  as  an  independent  force  in  human  society,  it  was 
religion's  turn  to  learn  in  the  severe  school  of  experi- 
ence. 

And  so  in  the  religious  world  there  has  been  experi- 
ence enough  and  to  spare.    Has  there  been  correspond- 


76  PROGRESS   FROM   EXPERIENCE 

ing  progress?  "Of  a  truth,"  will  be  the  impressive 
and  fervent  response  of  many.  But  that  is  a  matter 
of  standards.  For  others  again  are  filled  with  horror, 
aversion  or  disquietude  by  the  very  thought  of  such  a 
thing  as  progress  in  religion  as  represented  in  their 
minds.  What  account,  then,  has  Christianity  to  give 
of  itself  in  this  regard? 

We  have  as  connected  and  dependent  facts  that  the 
Founder  of  Christianity  presented  Himself  as  an  in- 
novator and  bringer  in  of  a  new  dispensation  and  re- 
ligious order,  destined  to  revolutionize  the  world  in  its 
aims,  purposes  and  guiding  principles;  while  He  reas- 
serted the  value  and  authority  of  those  who  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  nation  had  spoken  and  striven  for  God  and 
righteousness;  stating  with  all  clearness  that  He  had 
come  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill.  Certainly  He  did  not 
discourse  of  progress  and  development,  any  more  than 
the  messengers  of  the  Highest  preached  recovery  of 
sight  to  the  blind  and  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord 
in  the  times  of  the  Judges.  Instead,  He  taught  his  fol- 
lowers to  pray  for  the  coming  of  a  kingdom  which,  be- 
ing within  them,  was  ever  coming  yet  never  come. 

Continuing  through  the  Apostolic  Epistles  we  find 
with  stress  laid  upon  keeping  the  faith  and  on  growth 
in  spiritual  apprehension  the  declaration  that  we  are 
called  to  liberty.  It  is  to  be  hoped  the  Apostle  knew 
what  he  was  talking  about  in  settjng  forth  such  diverse 
and  paradoxical  principles,  principles  destined  in  prac- 
tice to  part  company  many  times.  The  paradox,  to  be 
sure,  is  on  the  hands  of  the  man  individual  or  collec- 
tive who  must  apply  the  principles  in  question  of  set 
purpose.  In  the  penetrating  mind  to  which  we  owe 
them  there  was  no  discord  nor  limitation  except  with 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     77 

regard  to  the  fact  that  we  are  composite  beings  and 
not  purely  spiritual  beings.  Conflicting  or  otherwise, 
keeping,  holding  or  maintaining  the  faith  and  spiritual 
and  intellectual  freedom  may  exist  as  coequal  opera- 
tions of  the  human  mind,  but  not  as  things  subordi- 
nate one  to  the  other.  When  faith  must  be  maintained 
by  the  exercise  of  authority,  traditional  or  ecclesias- 
tical, liberty  is  not  restricted  to  narrow  bounds;  it 
ceases  to  exist ;  and  herein  lies  the  kernel  of  all  the 
religious  contention  which  has  vexed  the  souls  of  men. 

As  to  growth  in  spiritual  apprehension  this  is  in- 
separable from  growth  in  knowledge  and  intellectual 
discernment.  Early  Christianity  had  its  contests  with 
heathen  philosophy  both  as  an  opponent  and  as  an  in- 
vading influence,  but  it  is  instructive  and  significant 
that  the  Christian  thinkers  were  not  slow  in  appropri- 
ating the  philosophy  of  the  master  minds  of  the  earlier 
period  of  Greek  intellectual  ascendancy.  Hence  the 
original  claim  of  universality  as  an  attribute  of  the 
Church.  But  the  universality  of  the  sixth  century 
ceased  to  have  the  quality  of  universality  ere  the  pass- 
ing of  the  sixteenth,  as  the  universality  of  the  sixteenth 
century  ceased  to  have  the  universal  quality  before  the 
advent  of  the  twentieth.  In  other  words,  knowledge 
based  on  experience  and  on  demonstrations  having  the 
value  of  experience  must  affect  the  viewpoint  of  every 
normal  free  mind.  If  the  authority  or  the  authorities 
sought  to  be  set  up  by  the  Protestant  reformers  had 
been  effective  the  newer  forms  of  religious  diversity 
were  as  surely  predestined  to  archaism  as  the  earlier 
forms,  with  less  hold  on  the  more  changeful  and  pro- 
gressive world  of  their  calling  forth. 

Civilization  ever  stands  in  need  both  of  conservative 


78     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

and  progressive  elements.  Without  the  one  stability, 
ripeness  and  influence  are  wanting.  "Without  the  other 
stagnation  and  decay  ensue.  Religion  has  shown  itself 
in  both  roles.  Can  it  be  counted  on  both  for  conser- 
vatism and  progressiveness  in  human  society?  Not 
when  the  principle  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  freedom 
is  withheld. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  PURITAN  SUCCESSION. 

The  history  of  New  England  might  be  characterized 
as  the  history  of  theories  and  'isms  which,  undoubted 
failures  as  such  from  the  first  to  the  last  of  them,  yet 
have  had  an  extraordinary  way  of  producing  thorough- 
going and  far-reaching  effects.  The  great  mother  of 
them  all  was  Puritanism.  As  an  attempt  to  set  up  the 
Kingdom  of  God  in  Massachusetts,  Puritanism  was  a 
dismal  failure;  in  fact,  that  must  have  been  the  origin 
of  the  expression.  But  taken  in  its  class  as  an  'ism, 
taking  its  origin  in  an  age  when  the  right  to  think, 
the  enwrapped  seed  of  the  future,  must  be  asserted  and 
maintained  or  shrivel  in  the  clutch  of  established  au- 
thority which,  deriving  from  the  past,  must  always  be 
the  defender  and  sustainer  of  the  past ;  comparing  its 
training  of  a  race  with  the  purposes  and  standards  of 
its  militant  competitors  instead  of  with  those  of  its 
most  enlightened  advisers,  it  shows  a  record  of  accom- 
plishment which  compels  recognition  and  which  still 
carries  today.  Mankind  is  not  led  today  by  its  most 
enlightened  advisers. 

The  Pilgrims  invited  themselves  into  the  shivering 
wilderness  of  a  strange  continent  to  achieve  religious 
and  civil  liberty  for  themselves  and  for  the  like-minded 
who  would  join  them,  and  not  for  anybody  else.  But 
the  wolf-haunted  wilderness  was  the  path  of  destiny 
for  others  besides  those  who  took  up  their  abode  in  it, 

79 


80     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

and  what  the  Pilgrims  there  achieved  for  themselves 
they  necessarily  achieved  for  their  race.  Thenceforth 
getting  possession  might  be  slow,  but  the  case  was  won. 
According  to  the  merits  of  the  case  honor  and  distinc- 
tion are  for  those  who  originate  or  foresee  what  others 
achieve,  while  the  credit  and  glory  of  the  achievement, 
in  this  and  in  any  other  world  of  which  we  have  present 
knowledge,  are  for  those  who  do  the  achieving,  even 
without  foresight  or  full  choice  of  what  they  would 
achieve.  "What  is  well  and  effectively  done  in  the 
world  as  it  goes  is  what  we  do  for  ourselves,  noble  ex- 
amples to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  What  we  do 
best  for  ourselves  and  what  is  best  worth  doing,  is  that 
which  benefits  others  besides  ourselves;  and  the  wails 
of  altruism  because  direct  motives  and  methods  in  its 
behalf  do  not  succeed  like  direct  ones,  but  die  away  in 
thin  air. 

At  a  great  price  obtained  they  this  freedom  that  their 
children  might  be  born  free,  and  the  price  paid  for 
freedom  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of 
their  own  consciences  made  the  thing  so  honorable  in 
the  eyes  of  all  men  that  no  more  effective  appeal  could 
be  forthcoming  thereafter  when  men  found  themselves 
in  need  of  a  defence  in  any  question  with  a  religious 
concern. 

The  spirit  of  Puritanism  was  narrow ;  life  in  the 
Puritan  colonies  was  narrow;  the  Puritans  themselves 
were  narrow.  But  the  narrow .  stream  of  Puritanism 
had  a  current.  In  a  community  where  the  religious 
motive  bulked  large  and  where  the  current  religion  ap- 
pealed to  the  head  at  least  as  much  as  to  the  heart,  it 
was  not  mental  stimulus  that  was  lacking.  Without 
seeking  to  encourage  free  inquiry  Puritanism  provoked 


PROGRESS   FROM   EXPERIENCE  81 

discussion  and  laid  stress  upon  conviction.  While  faith 
may  be  the  child  of  authority  conviction  cannot  be. 
With  plentiful  stimulus,  abundant  experience  and  the 
constant  aim  to  improve  the  mental  equipment  of  the 
generality  ultra  conservatism  and  immobility  were  well 
provided  against. 

Outside  influences  counted  for  little.  If  the  attempt 
at  a  theocracy  could  not  be  maintained  Puritanism  nev- 
ertheless felt  itself  to  be  successful,  and  in  spite  of  the 
aversion  of  those  unfriendly  to  it  the  land  of  the  Pil- 
grim's pride  was  not  without  prestige  both  at  home  and 
abroad.  The  success  of  the  Puritan  commonwealths 
tended  to  render  them  impervious  to  adverse  criticism 
and  made  for  stability  rather  than  for  progressiveness 
on  the  religious  side.  The  liberalizing  of  Puritanism 
therefore  proceeded  essentially  from  within,  springing 
from  its  o^\ti  unquenchable  sources. 

In  the  sister  colony  of  Maryland  the  principle  of  full 
religious  liberty  was  at  once  declared  by  the  enlight- 
ened founders  who  were  the  ornament  of  the  religious 
system  to  which  they  owned  allegiance  rather  than  the 
consistent  exponents  of  its  general  policy  and  attitude 
as  exhibited  elsewhere  on  a  wider  scale.  This  enlight- 
ened policy  of  the  proprietaries  insured  the  success  of 
their  colonial  pro.ieet.  which  otherwise  would  have  been 
doubtful,  and  furnished  a  shining  example  for  Catho- 
lics and  Protestants  alike,  which  was  followed  by 
neither.  It  cannot  be  that  so  fine  an  example  was 
thrown  away  even  on  the  world  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury ;  yet  it  is  not  apparent  or  demonstrable  that  Mary- 
land exerted  by  virtue  thereof  any  influence  or  guid- 
ance among  her  sister  communities  out  of  proportion 
to  her  general  importance  and  moral  weight. 


82     PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

Thus  while  New  England  was  backward  in  apprecia- 
tion of  the  rights  of  the  other  side,  she  possessed  the 
latent  forces  of  progress  and  accomplishment  in  her 
moral  earnestness  and  cultivation  of  the  reasoning 
powers. 

When  the  broadminded  of  a  broadened  age,  alive  to 
the  value  of  historical  retrospection,  recall  the  narrow- 
ness of  a  narrow  age,  it  is  something  more  than  charity 
for  others  that  withholds  them  from  making  this  nar- 
rowness a  reproach  to  those  who  created  standards  for 
their  own  and  the  succeeding  age,  including  standards 
the  bettering  of  which  is  our  chosen  criterion  for  meas- 
uring our  own  advance.  They  were  and  we  are  the  ma- 
terials of  the  same  evolution,  an  evolution  proceeding 
on  the  psychological  plane  by  a  selection  in  part  natural 
and  unconscious  and  in  part  highly  intentional  and 
determinative.  The  Puritans  did  not  misjudge  in  hold- 
ing their  present  the  father  of  a  future ;  and  if  this  led 
them  to  an  excessive  sense  of  responsibility  for  that  fu- 
ture we  their  descendants  in  safety  and  by  resolve  shall 
be  guilty  in  no  such  manner  and  degree. 

By  the  evidence  of  their  accomplishment  and  by  the 
constantly  accumulating  evidence  of  what  force  of  char- 
acter counts  for  in  human  affairs  are  we  held  to  the 
realization  that  broadness  is  not  the  sole  requisite, 
whether  in  the  matter  of  broad  views,  broad  a's  or 
broad  acres.  If  our  broadness  shall  be  the  one  essen- 
tial quality  in  justification  of  standards  which  may  be 
found  not  at  all  commanding  by  our  successors  upon 
the  scene,  then  this  all-sufficiency  of  broadness  will  it- 
self constitute  a  narrowness.  The  sea  is  wide.  It  is 
also  deep  and  clear.  The  desert,  too,  is  wide  and  at 
times  simulates  the  ocean,  and  its  depth  is  of  no  par- 
ticular consequence. 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE     83 

The  time  came  for  weighing  and  judging  this  Puri- 
tanism, its  works,  its  results,  its  vestiges,  without  par- 
tiality on  the  safe  basis  of  an  historical  record  free  of 
ambiguity  and  in  complete  liberation  from  its  dominat- 
ing influence ;  a  process  joined  in  both  as  to  judicial 
quality  and  the  quality  of  uncritical  severity  and  aver- 
sion by  successors  of  the  Puritans  themselves  as  those 
having  least  cause  to  forget  it.  This  time  came  so  long 
ago  that  the  time  must  come  for  considering  the  stand- 
point, the  sources  and  the  finality  of  the  judgment  so 
passed  in  its  turn.  The  theory  that  the  natural  man  is 
sin,  having  abundance  of  gross  and  palpable  evidence 
to  support  it,  the  repression  of  the  natural  man  was 
the  simplest  solution  to  aim  at — a  solution  of  a  real 
question  too  easy  to  be  the  right  one. 

It  was  a  foregone  conclusion,  therefore,  the  direction 
which  the  revolt  against  Puritanism  would  take,  as 
also  the  general  impress  which  would  remain  as  the 
heritage  of  such  a  contest.  It  is  this  attempted  repres- 
sion of  our  impulses  and  pleasures  which  constitutes 
our  most  settled  grudge  against  Puritanism  in  tradi- 
tion or  in  any  of  its  otherwise  lingering  manifestations. 
The  marks  of  bloodstained  fingers  on  the  hem  of  its 
garment  and  the  dealings  of  dissenters  with  dissent  do 
but  lend  force  and  conclusiveness  to  this  our  chief  in- 
dictment. 

And  now  the  day  with  its  superfluous  sunshine  and 
the  night  which  needlessly  offers  its  ancient  mantle  of 
darkness  alike  reveal  a  prevailing  and  extending  Epi- 
curianism  of  a  Puritan  cast  and  a  humanitarian  slant — 
either  this  or  the  same  old  Epicurianism  without  dis- 
tinction or  originality  whatever.  In  this  day,  this  hey- 
day   of    transformed    voltage    and    magnified    candle- 


84  PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE 

power,  it  is  this  rejuvenated  Epicurianisin  which  feels 
the  greatest  self-assurance,  and  discerns  no  cloud  upon 
the  horizon,  if,  indeed,  it  ever  looks  around  for  such  a 
thing   as  an  horizon. 

There  also  remains  in  presence,  equally  sharing  the 
spirit  of  the  present  and  not  of  any  exclusive  deriva- 
tion, a  willingness  to  believe  that  the  inspiration  of 
an  heroic  past  is  a  good  thing  today  and  will  be  a  good 
thing  tomorrow;  and  that  what  is  second-rate,  ill-ad- 
vised or  outgrown  in  such  a  past  may  be  eliminated 
while  conserving  and  fortifying  what  is  of  undoubted 
value  and  rightfully  enduring.  But  those  of  this  wil- 
lingness find  the  prestige  of  Puritanism,  whose  vitality 
quickened  that  heroic  past,  of  scant  support  or  com- 
fort; rather  that  the  ready  taunt  of  Puritan  or  puri- 
tanic will  be  the  assured  reliance  of  the  contrary- 
minded. 

One  or  the  other  of  these  tendencies  or  dispositions 
must  gain  with  the  passing  years.  What  do  reflecting 
men,  impressed  with  the  waxing  and  waning  of  earlier 
civilizations,  foresee  in  the  universal  prevalence  of  the 
all-for-present-enjoyment  disposition?  Total  ruin  and 
final  collapse?  Such  is  at  best  a  hasty  reading  of  his- 
tory. Equally  deducible  therefrom  is  the  evidence  that 
sooner  or  later  men  recoil  from  emptiness  and  excess  of 
vanity,  while  pessimism,  the  fate  of  the  modern  mind, 
with  its  attractive  and  authoritative  pendulum  theory, 
would  fully  warrant  the  forecast  that  the  inevitable  re- 
action must  take  the  form  of  a  new  Puritanism,  how- 
ever cured  of  preaching  and  however  unfamiliar  its 
features,  which  will  still  be  as  unwelcome  and  scorching 
to  the  unprotected  sensibilities  of  the  future  subjects 
for  heroic  treatment  as  the  last  recorded  kind.     Truth 


PROGRESS  FROM  EXPERIENCE  85 

to  say  the  prospect  does  not  fill  us  with  alarmed  appre- 
hension, but  this  is  because  we  are  really  not  pessi- 
mists, although  we  sometimes  think  we  are,  and  stoutly 
disbelieve  in  the  completion  of  the  first  half  of  the 
cycle,  and  not  because  we  do  not  see  that  those  who 
will  not  learn  from  the  unloved  yet  fruitful  past  are 
furnishing  the  dynamics  for  reactions  which  do  not 
come. 

Thrice  happy  the  people  who  have  no  history.  Their 
contemporaries,  heroic  and  unheroic,  will  be  undis- 
turbed in  their  chosen  courses  by  insistence  on  some 
other  course,  their  remote  descendants  will  not  re- 
proach them  their  making  of  history,  neither  will  they 
have  wit  enough  to  reproach  them  their  lack  of  his- 
tory-making qualities. 


The  End. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Form  L9-Serie8  4939 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  821  652 


HN 
6k 
H989p 


t 


PLZA^fL  DO   NOT    REMOVE 
THIS    BOOK  CARD    ', 


^(!/0Jl]V3JO'^ 


University  Research  Library 


03 


c;'?c:-^<-5^!^<??5g?'^^^^>?«j^.<^egg^> 


